H!
HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE
ANCIENT NEGRO
A Compilation
BY
EDWARD E. CARLISLE
JOSEPHINE E. CARLISLE
Boston, Mass.
THE COSMOS PRESS
Cambridge, Mass.
0 ^- v
COPYRIGHT, 1920
BY
JOSEPHINE E. CARLISLE
PREFACE
We have endeavored to present to our readers a
selected collection of historical facts in one volume on the
Ethiopian or Ancient Negro. It has long since been con-
ceded that Negro nations or Hamites were the earliest
civilized peoples and the real source of the civilization we
enjoy to-day. More and more are we made cognizant
of the fact that men to-day are but doing over the things
that were done thousands of years ago and it is inter-
esting to note that the Negro's share in those early
activities was not a small one. It is to familiarize the
youth as well as the adult of the Negro race with the
events in which many of their ancestors centered that it
may be an incentive to higher aims and nobler aspira-
tions.
"Now our day is come," says one writer, "we have
been born out of the eternal silence; and now we will
live for ourselves and not as the pall bearers of a
funeral. Now that we are here we will put our own
interpretation on things and our own things for inter-
pretation." This has been our chief aim in compiling
this work — to interpret the Negro's status in the ancient
world unbiased and impartial — to emphasize his identity
in the midst of the Caucasian chaos in which most histori-
ans have placed him — only as a hewer of stone and drawer
of water is he in bold relief. Our own interpretation
has preserved to us, however, many glowing accounts
of the deeds of black men with which every one of African
descent should be familiar and justly proud. J. E. C.
CONTENTS.
I.
The Dispersion of the Human Family with reference to
the children of Ham the Progenitor of the Negro race.
Nimrod the grandson of Ham (the Negro) the first ruler
and landed proprietor that history records, Cushites and
Canaanites, Negroes of antiquity.
II.
Meroe the Ethiopian Capital.
The State of Meroe.
The Commerce of Meroe.
III.
Ethiopian (or Negro) Supremacy, Piankhi the great
Negro Pharaoh, Amenardis his wife and queen mother of
Tirharka the formidable foe of Sennacherib — Shabaka
brother of Piankhi — Shabataka and Tanut-Amon,
successive Ethiopian Pharaohs.
IV.
Macrobian Ethiopians (Negroes) and Cambyses
attempt to make war upon them.
V.
Negro-Egyptian Pharaohs.
New Empire — XVII, Theban Dynasty, Amenophites
and Thotmesites, Nefert-ari-Aahmes — the black queen
ancestress of the line of kings of the eighteenth dynasty,
Amenhotep I, Thotmes I and his sister- wife Aahmes
and their children Hashep and Hatasu. Thotmes II
and Thotmes III, Amenophis II, Thotmes IV, Amenophis
III (Mimnon), Amenophis IV.
VI.
How Moses made war upon the Ethiopians. His
marriage with the Ethiopian Princess Tharbis.
VII.
How Moses fled out of Egypt into Midian. He mar-
ries Zipporah an Ethiopian woman.
VIII.
Moses receives Jethro, his father-in-law — the black
priest of Midian who organized the first court of equity.
IX.
THE QUEEN OF SHEBA.
X.
Carthage.
Hamilcar, Hannibal, Hasdrubal, The Punic Wars,
Hannibals Treaty.
XI.
Septimus Severeus, Negro Emperor of Rome. His
Sons, Geta and Caracalla.
Earth had mighty dark hued heroes
In the morning of the world
Giant warriors clad in lightning
Who their bold defiance hurled
High as heaven and down the ages:
Nimrod Seti, Rameses,
Hannibal — bold lions rampant
Romping through dawn's amethyst —
Bronzed Nemeans, leaping storming
Down the morning's amber mist!
Rise, forgotten Past! Meroe
Where great Moses loved arise!
Tyre Thebes Nineveh we knew you
When the world was paradise!
Sphinxes, pyramids, silent Memnon
Ruined Memphis — Babylon,
Relics of great deeds and empires
Of the proud, dark peoples gone,
We your clay creators loved you
In the clanging purple dawn.
Rev. Dr. Jas. D. Corrothers.
THE DISPERSION OF THE HUMAN FAMILY.
After the deluge the earth was divided between the
three sons of Noah, Japhet, Shem and Ham. The
peoples connected with Japhet occupy the northern
portion of the known wofld and include the Madai
(Medes) on the East of Assyria, Javans, lonians, i. e.
Greeks, on the West Coast of Asia Minor and Tarshish
(Tartessus) on the West Coast of Spain.
Shem is the ancestor of several peoples, occupying
roughly speaking, the central portion of the known
world. Shem stands for a people in Palestine or some
portion of them with whom Japhet lived in close con-
junction and to whom Canaan was subjugated.1
Ham's descendants were alloted the southern portion
and possessed the land from Syria and Amans and the
mountains of Libanus seizing upon all that was on its
seacoasts and as far as the ocean, and keeping it as their
own. (Josephus.)
"According to Armenian tradition to Ham was given
the region of the blacks, to Shem the region of the
tawny, fuscorum and to Japhet the region of the ruddy,
rubrorum. To the sons of Shem was allotted the middle
of the earth, viz. — Palestine, Syria, Assyria, Samaria,
Singar (or Shinar), Babel (or Babylonia), Persia and
Higiaz (Arabia) ; to the sons of Ham Tiemen or Idumea
(Jer. 49:7) Africa, Nigritia, Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia,
Scindia and India (or India west and east of the river
«A. H.M'Neil. Bib. Diet.
8 CARLISLE
Indus) ; to the sons of Japhet also, Garbia (the north),
Spain, France, the the countries of the Greeks, Scla-
vonians, Bulgarians, Turks and Armenians."1
Ham, or Cham, son of Noah and brother to Shem
and Japhet is believed to be Noah's youngest son.
Ham, says Dr. Hales, signifies burnt or black and this
name was peculiarly significant of the regions allotted
to his family. To the Cushites, or children of his eldest
son Cush were allotted the hot southern regions of Asia
along the coasts of the Persian Gulf, Suisiana, Chusistan
Arabia, etc.; to the sons Canaan, Palestine and Syria;
to the sons of Mizraim Egypt and Lybia Libya in Africa.2
THE SONS OF HAM.
The first and most celebrated of Ham's sons was
Cush who gave name to the land of Cush both in Asia
and Africa, the former called Chusistan by the Arabian
Geographers, Suisiana by the Greeks, Cusha Dwipa
within by the Hindus, the other Cusha Dwipa without.
The posterity of Cush spread over a great part of
Asia and Africa, were called Cushim or Cushites by
the Greeks and Romans and in our Bible Ethiopians.
They first settled on the Gulf of Persia, spread over
India and Arabia, particularly its western part on the
Red Sea, invaded Egypt under the name of Hyksos or
Shepherd kings and after ruling Egypt for five centuries
passed into Central Africa and first peopled the countries
1 Fessenden & Go's. Ency.
2 Watson, Fessenden & Go's. Ency.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 9
south of Egypt, Nubia, Abyssinian and other countries
farther south.1
And Cush begat Nimrod "he began to be mighty
hunter in the earth." (Gen.) and the most conspicuous
Negro character of early antiquity. He was the indirect
cause of the dispersion of mankind over the earth, being
one of the first examples of God's use of man as an agent
in carrying out the divine purpose. Having great
influence over the people, he suggested the building of a
tower that should reach to heaven and make them a
name and also serve as a refuge should there be another
flood. To this the people readily agreed and proceeded
to carry out Nimrod's rebellious plans, but were suddenly
confused, not being able to understand one another, and
the tower, called Babel (confusion) was abandoned. God
punished them in this way because they had been drawn
away from their allegiance to Him.
He may be styled the parent of organized human
society. "He, Nimrod, first subverted the patriarchal
government and introduced the Zabian idolatry or wor-
ship of the heavenly host; and after his death, was
deified by his subjects, and supposed to be translated
into the constellations of Orion attended by his hounds
Sirius and Canicular, and still pursuing his favorite
game, the great bear."2
Nimrod was a despot and ruled tyrannically but we
can hardly conceive of any other form of government
being adequate for the horde with which he had to con-
tend, beset with doubts and fears. That Nimrod did
i Fessenden & Go's. Ency.
1 Watson, Fessenden & Go's. Ency.
IO CARLISLE
not follow his kindred, but remained in the land of
Shinar, a usurper, but tends to show that God had work
to be done and had chosen whom he thought best fitted
to perform it. From Nimrod we trace the Asiatic
Ethiopians and those of India.
Canaan the fourth son of Ham settled what was
known in patriarchal ages as India and called it from
his own name Canaan. The posterity of Canaan was
numerous. His eldest son Sidon founded the city of
Sidon and was father of the Sidonians and Phoenicians
notwithstanding the curse (Gen. 9:25) is directed against
Canaan the son and not against the father, it is often
supposed that all the posterity of Ham were placed
under this maladiction, "Cursed be Canaan a servant of
servants shall he be unto his brethren." But the true
reason why Canaan only was mentioned probably is
that the curse was in fact restricted to the posterity of
Canaan. It is true that many Africans of other branches
of Hani's family have been cruelly enslaved; but so have
other tribes in different parts of the world. There is
certainly no proof that the Negro race was placed under
this malediction.
Whatever punishment the Canaanites received was
due to their disobedience and sins. "Joshua extir-
pated great numbers and obliged the rest to fly, some
of them into Africa, and others into Greece. Proco-
pius says, they first retreated into Egypt, but advanced
into Africa where they built many cities, and spread
themselves over these vast regions which reach to the
straits, preserving their old language with little altera-
tion. In the time of Athanasius, (296) the Africans still
said they were descended from the Canaanites; and
when asked their origin, they answered, "Canaani."
THE ANCIENT NEGRO II
It is agreed that the Punic tongue was nearly the same
as the Canaanitish or Hebrew.1
Now all the children of Mizraim, being eight in num-
ber, possessed the land from Gaza to Egypt though it
retained the name of one only, the Philistim, for the
Greeks called part of that country Palestine. As for
the rest we know nothing of them besides their names;
for the Ethiopic war caused those cities to be overthrown.
Phut was the founder of Libya and called the inhabitants
Phutites from himself. (Josephus.)
Thus we see that many centuries of time elapsed be-
fore these peoples arrived at fixed or final places of abode
from a geographical point of view. The children of
Ham were the leading people at this early period.
'Their early possession of the seacoasts made them a
seafaring race and early established commercial inter-
course between them, thus enabling them to sooner
arrive at civilization and the luxuries of life than their
simpler pastoral brethren of the other two families.
Tyre, Sidon and Carthage were early distinguished for
their commerce, but the sooner fell into decay.'
STATE or MERGE.
Let the mighty men come forth; the Ethiopians that handle the
shield. -Jer. XLVI, 9.
The Ethiopians were a civilized people who dwelt
in cities; — who erected temples and other edifices;
who though without letters, had hieroglyphics; who
had government and laws; and the fame of whose
> Watson, Fessenden & Go's. Ency.
1 2 CARLISLE
progress in knowledge and the social arts spread in the
earliest ages over a considerable part of the earth.
Meroe the mother city and capital of all Ethiopia
has been celebrated for upwards of two thousand years,
but its distant situation has always involved it in mys-
tery and obscurity. It was brought to light by Burk-
hardt and Caillaud. Meroe, however, did not appear
alone; a new world of antiquities was laid open to the
view of the astonished spectator.
The southern boundary of Egypt and the last cataract
of the Nile had hitherto been considered the utmost
verge of civilization and science. More distant regions
were now explored. The more early travellers Bruce
and his forerunners first led the way by crossing the
Nubian desert, others soon followed who penetrated up
the Nile, keeping near its banks, where they discovered
that succession of monuments which has excited so
much astonishment among all lovers of antiquity as
well by their numbers as their magnitude. Temple
after temple appeared, sometimes erected upon, at others
excavated in the rocks and the earth; scarcely had the
traveller left one than another arose to his view.
Colossal figures buried up to their shoulders in sand still
towered above all these which lay concealed behind
them. As the travellers continued their journey an
immense number of pyramids appeared with temples
and ruins of cities close by or intermingled with them
and at last the distant Meroe itself and the ancient
temple of Jupiter Ammon still erect and majestic in its
ruins.
The valley of the Nile was once covered on both sides
with villages of which Pliny has left us the names and
only the names of twenty on each side; in his time they
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 13
no longer existed and he informs us that they were not
destroyed by Roman wars, but by the earlier contentions
between Ethiopia and Egypt. (Heeren).
Meroe is of special interest as the royal city of Ethio-
pia. Here the Ethiopian or Negro kings and princes
first saw the light of day and among them and their
subjects the first seeds of civilization took root. All
the early royal personages of which we have any record
resided at Meroe. In the eighth century, B. C. Napata
was the capital — "a city of great wealth, filled with
costly stone temples, avenues of sphinxes adorned the
approaches to these sacred edifices.
This is the period in which the three mighty con-
querors, Sabaco, Sevechus and Tirharkah directed their
weapons against Egypt.
COMMERCE OF MEROE.
ETHIOPIANS. II.
"As one passes beyond the land of the midday the Ethiopian land
is that which extends furthest of all lands towards the sunset. This
produces gold in abundance and large elephants and trees of all
kinds growing wild and ebony and men who of all men are the tallest
the most beautiful and ttie most long lived." (Herodotus.)
The Ethiopians were the most noted people of early
antiquity. ("They were a civilized people who dwelt
in cities, who erected temples and other edifices, who,
though without letters, had hieroglyphics, who had
government and laws and the fame of whose progress in
knowledge and the social arts spread in the earliest ages
over a considerable part of the earth.") From the
remotest times to the present one of the most celebrated
14 CARLISLE
yet mysterious of nations. In the earliest traditions of
all the more civilized nations of antiquity the name of
this distant people is found. The annals of the Egyp-
tian priests were full of them; the nations of inner
Asia on the Euphrates and Tigris have interwoven the
fictions of the Ethiopians with their own traditions of
the conquests and wars of their heroes, and at a period
equally remote they glimmer in Greek mythology.
When the Greeks scarcely knew Italy and Sicily by
name the Ethiopians were celebrated in the verses of
their poets. "They are the remotest nation, the most
just of men, the favorites of the gods. The lofty inhabi-
tants of Olympus journey to them and take part in their
feasts. Their sacrifices are the most agreeable of all
that mortals can offer them " and when the faint gleam
of tradition gives way to the clear light of history, the
lustre of the Ethiopian is not diminished. They still
continue the object of curiosity and admiration, and the
pen of cautious clear sighted historians often places
them in the highest rank of knowledge and civilization.1
In Scripture they occupy a prominent place.
Zipporah, the wife of Moses, the illustrious lawgiver,
was an Ethiopian and prior to his flight into Midian
Moses married Tharbis, an Ethiopian princess. Queen
Candace, whose eunuch Phillip baptized, was an Ethi-
opian and not the only Ethiopian queen by that name,
the title being used in the same way as Pharaoh for the
ruler of Egypt and Caesar for Rome. Ebed-Melech,
who rescued the prophet Jeremiah from the pit prison
was an Ethiopian enunch. The Ethiopian Zerah who
went out to meet Asa with a host of a thousand thous-
1 Heeren p. 290.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 1$
and men and three hundred chariots was so formidable
a general that special divine favor alone saved Asa from
inglorious defeat. Solomon's renowned visitor, Makeda,
queen of Sheba, was an Ethiopian sovereign. Tirharkah,
the mere rumor of whose coming caused Sennacherib
and his army to flee from their already fortified posi-
tions was one of the greatest Ethiopian conquerors and
rulers of antiquity, second only to his father, Piankhi,
the Negro Pharaoh who subdued all Egypt and whose
reign was the beginning of Ethiopian supremacy. The
foregoing is but a hint of the Negro's illustrious ancestry
upon which modern research is shedding new light
every day. He not only bore the cross but wore a crown.
All true Christians are cross-bearers in a religious sense
but it does not necessarily follow that we must be burden
bearers for our brethren — such a theory belongs to the
pessimist. To bear the cross of Christ is a signal honor
and privilege which could in nowise bring misery to a
people. We have confounded the crosses placed upon
us by our more fortunate brethren with that borne by
Simon the Cyrenian. We have thus submitted uncom-
plainingly to an unnatural burden.
This view, however, has been ably sustained by many
learned men notably among them Prof. Heeren, whose
inferences seem most logical and whom we shall quote
at length.
COMMERCE OF MEROE.
In proportion as we ascend into the primeval ages,
the closer seems the connection between Egypt and
Ethiopia. The Hebrew poets seldom mention the
former without the latter; the inhabitants of both are
drawn as commercial nations. When Isaiah, or rather
1 6 CARLISLE
a later poet in his name, celebrates the victories of
Cyrus, their submission is spoken of as his most magnifi-
cent reward. ''The trade of the Egyptians and the
merchandise of the Ethiopians, and of the tall men of
Saba will come over to thee and become thine own."
When Jeremiah extols the great victory of Nebuchad-
nezzar over Pharaoh Neco near Carchemish, the Ethi-
opians are allied to the Egyptians. When Ezekiel
threatens the downfall of Egypt, the remotest parts of
Ethiopia tremble at the denunciation.
Every page indeed of Egyptian history exhibits
proofs of the close intimacy in which they stood. The
primitive states of Egypt .... derived their origin from
these remote regions.
Thebes and Meroe founded in common a colony in
Libya. Ethiopian conquerors more than once invaded
Egypt. Egyptian kings in return forced their way into
Ethiopia, the same worship, the same manners and cus-
toms, the same mode of writing are found in both coun-
tries; and under Psammatichus the noble and numerous
party of malcontents retired into Ethiopia. Does not
this intimate connection presuppose a permanent alliance
which could only have been formed and maintained by a
long peacable and friendly intercourse?
Egypt also, as far as history reaches back, abounded
in all the commodities of the southern regions. Whence
did she obtain the spices and drugs with which so many
thousand of her dead were embalmed? Whence the
incense which burned on her altars? Whence that
immense quantity of cotton in which her inhabitants
were clad and which her own soil produced so sparingly?
Further, whence came into Egypt that early rumor
of the Ethiopian gold countries, which Cambyses set
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 17
out to discover and lost half his army in the attempt?
Whence that profusion of ivory and ebony with which
the ancient artists of Greece and Palestine embellished?
Whence that general and early spread of the name of
Ethiopia which glimmers in the traditional history of
so many nations, and which is celebrated as well by the
Jewish poets as the earliest Grecian bards? Whence
all this if the deserts which surrounded that people had
formed an impassible barrier between them and the
inhabitants of the northern district? Yet why should
I invoke the traditions that have so long slept? Let
the remains of those proud monuments which extend
in one unbroken line from Elephantis and Philae be-
yond the desert to Meroe now speak for themselves.
However short and monosyllabic their language, they
plainly evince that close connection must have pre-
vailed between the two nations that erected them, a
connection between the richest and most productive
regions of the earth; the gold countries of eastern Africa,
the spice regions of India and the native land of frankin-
cense, precious stones and drugs in Southern Arabia.
THE RELATION IN WHICH COMMERCE STOOD IN THESE
REGIONS WITH RELIGION.
Commerce and religion have always been indissolubly
connected in the East. All trade and commercial
intercourse requires peaceable and secure places in
which it may be transacted. In the limited countries
of Europe inhabited by nations partly or altogether
civilized every city, indeed almost every hamlet affords
this. How totally different is the case in the immeas-
urable tracts of the East? The rich caravans here have
1 8 CARLISLE
often to perform journeys of hundreds of miles through
nations of nomad robbers. The mart is not where they
might choose, but on the boundaries of the desert,
where nature herself fixes it in the midst or in the neigh-
borhood of these roving hordes. What can protect
commerce here but the sanctity of the place? Where
are their asylums except under the walls of the temple?
Besides, a profitable and ready sale of merchandise
requires resorting together of men; and where does this
take place so frequently and to such an extent as in the
vicinity of the national sanctuaries, where whole nations
celebrate their feasts. Here where men give them-
selves up to good living; the necessaries of life will be
plentiful, and here the merchant will obtain the best
profits. Now, however, the East affords a striking
example of the extent to which the trade by sea has
diminished that by land. Mecca remains still through
its holy sanctuary the chief mart for the commerce of
Arabia and what are the great caravans of pilgrims
which journey thither from Asia and Africa but trading
caravans? Are not the fairs which depend upon them
the greatest in Asia?
The rapidity with which a place rises in the East,
when once it has obtained a sanctuary that becomes the
object of pilgrimage and by that means becomes a place
of trade, almost surpasses belief. Tenta, a city of the
Delta, is celebrated as containing the sepulchre of a
Mohammetan Mohomitan saint Seyd Achmed. The
veneration in which this is held brings an incredible
number of pilgrims, who come at the time of the spring
equinox and summer solstice, from Egypt, Abysinnia,
Arabia and Darfour. Their number is stated at one
hundred and fifty thousand.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 19
The whole organization of social life in these parts
contributes towards it.
These periodical assemblies, besides the worship of
the saint, are devoted to commerce; and each of them
is a period of a celebrated fair which lasts for many
days and at which the produce of Upper Egypt, the coast
of Barbary and the whole of the East is exchanged for
the cattle of the Delta and the linen there manufactured.
The fame of the Ethiopians as a civilized people had
forced its way into Greece in the time of Homer and
referred preeminently to Meroe. The hundred gated
Thebes is celebrated by the same poet. The traditions
of Jupiter Ammon in Libya are interwoven with most
ancient Greek Mythi (Dioatorus i, p. 237) and that the
Carthaginian coasts was a theatre of these mythi is
generally known from the Argonautic expedition, the
Triton sea, the garden of the Hesperides, the Gorgons,
etc.
All this proves that rumors of these regions and places
travelled very early into the West; and is it not evident
that these should be understood of the places, which
were the seats of national commerce?
The chief places of this trade were likewise establish-
ments of the priest caste who as a dominant race had
their principal seat at Meroe whence they sent out
colonies which in their turn became builders of cities
and temples and likewise the founders of states.
No doubt therefore can exist respecting the close
connection between trade and religion here, nor respect-
ing the manner in which more than one state can be
formed in the interior of Africa in very high antiquity.
Notwithstanding the part which nomads took in
conducting it, the trade itself still remained in the hands
20 CARLISLE
of Meroe and Auxum, who carried it on by their foreign
settlements and these places still remain what nature
herself has appointed, the great marts for the southern
commerce.
Thus the great conclusion so interesting and important
for human nature and its history, becomes in a manner
forced upon us; the first seats of commerce were also
the first seats of civilization; exchange of merchandise
led to exchange of ideas and by this mutual friction was
first kindled the sacred flame of moral and intellectual
culture.
That this civilization of the Ethiopians, that is, of the
ruling priest caste, was bound to their religion is easily
shown. Some scientific knowledge must indisputably
have been connected with it else the erection of these
monuments would have been impossible.
Diodorus derives the civilization of the Egyptians
in general from Ethiopia. Champollion by comparing
the manners and customs, the political institutions and
physical organizations of the Egyptians with those of
other nations regards it as certain that they are a genuine
African descended race.
The Ethiopians possessed the art of writing, not
however, alphabetical characters but merely picture
writing, a proof of which is still preserved upon the ruins
of Meroe and from this passage the first invention of it
has been attributed to them. The invention of this kind
of writing would be nowhere more easy than among
a people with so decided a bias for the pictorial arts
nor the use and perfectioning of it more natural than
in a state whose government, next to religion, was founded
upon trade. A very interesting fact, however, is re-
corded by Diodorus; namely that the knowledge of
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 21
picture writing in Ethiopia was not a privilege confined
solely to the caste of priests as in Egypt, but that every
one might attain it as freely as they might in Egypt
the writing in common use. This, then, is a powerful
proof of its being applied to the purposes of trade.
A great commercial nation altogether without writing
surely could never exist. Hieroglyphics were quite
adequate for the caravan trade whose ' regular course
and simple merchandise demanded but few accounts.
The fame of the piety and justice of the Ethiopians,
true even to our day among African natives, spread
to the most distant regions even to the Greeks. They
are the first virtues which would be cultivated in a
nation whose government was established by religion
and commerce and not by violence and oppression.
The progress this nation had made in the pictorial
arts is still one of the greatest problems, though one of
the greatest certainties. The ruins of those colossal
monuments, more or less preserved, still lie there and
will remain the everlasting proofs of the awful magnifi-
cence of their architecture.1
Walking among ruins the traveller forgets the present to contem-
plate the past and amid the traces of a degenerate race mark the
remains of a mighty nation.
"The flourishing period of Meroe was 700-800 B. C.,
the period in which the three mighty conquerors, Sabaco,
Sevechus and Tirharkah or Tarhaco started up as con-
querors and directed their weapons against Egypt, to
which at least Upper Egypt became an easy prey, the un-
fortunate troubles of the dodecarchy having just taken
place. According to Eusibius, Sabaco reigned twelve,
* A. H. L. Hieren: Extracts from Com. of Mero£.
22 CARLISLE
Sevechus twelve and Tirharkah twenty years. Hero-
dotus mentions only Sabaco, to whom he gives a reign
of fifty years, which covers the whole dynasty." Later
research, however, has given us five Ethiopian kings of
pure stock: Piankhi, Shabaka, Shabataka, Tirharkah
and Tamitamon, all of whose reigns we have been able
to give in detail under Mr. Breasted's " Ethiopian
Supremacy."
Herodotus gives an interesting account of the reign
of Sabaco the Ethiopian. He was a just king, who
punished crime not by putting to death, but passed
sentence according to the magnitude of the offence,
that imposed being to throw up mounds or dams about
the city to which they belonged, thus making the cities
higher.
After a reign of fifty years, remembering that the
oracle had said he was to remain in Egypt for that length
of time and having had a vision that seemed to bode ill,
he returned to Ethiopia. This shows their great faith
in and dependence upon the oracle of Ammon.
Sevechus was the contemporary of Hosea, king of
Israel, whose reign ended 722, and of Salmanasar.
Tirharkah was the contemporary of his successor,
Sennacherib, and deterred him in the year 714 B. C.
from the invasions of Egypt merely by the rumor of his
advance against him. His name was not unknown to
the Greeks. Eratosthenes, in Strabo, mentions him as a
conqueror who had penetrated into Europe and as far
as the pillars of Hercules, that is, as a great conqueror.
Meroe must have ranked at this time as a very important
state and we shall find this to be the case if we go back
about two hundred years to the time of Asa, the great
grandson of Solomon, but who nevertheless mounted
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 23
the throne of Judah within twenty years after his grand-
sires death, 955. "Against him went out Zerah, the
Ethiopian, with a host of a thousand thousand men and
three hundred chariots . ' ' This is a proof of the mightiness
of the empire which at this time probably comprised
Arabia Felix, but the chariots of war, which were never
in use in Arabia, prove that the passage refers to Ethio-
pia. Zerah 's exhibition took place in the early part of
Asa's reign, about nine hundred and fifty years before
Christ, and such an empire could not be quite a new one.
We are led by undoubted historical statements up to
the period of Solomon, about 1000 B. C. Further back
than this the annals of history are silent but the monu-
ments now begin to speak and confirm that high an-
tiquity which general opinion and the tradition of
Meroe attribute to this state. The name of Rameses
or Sesostris has been found upon many of the Nubian
monuments, and that he was the conqueror of Ethiopia
is known from history. The period in which he flour-
ished cannot be placed later than fifteen hundred years
before the Christian era. But the name of Thutmosis,
belonging to the preceding dynasty, has also been found
in Nubia, and that assuredly upon one of the most
ancient monuments of Armada. But in this sculpture,
as well as in the procession representing the victory over
Ethiopia, in the offering of the booty, there appears a
degree of civilization which shows an acquaintance
with the peaceful arts; they must consequently be
attributed to a nation that had long been formed.
24 CARLISLE
ETHIOPIAN SUPREMACY.
Ethiopia, sable goddess, from her ebon throne now stretches forth
in royal majesty Her ebon sceptor o'er the ancient world.
"I am born 6f the loins created from the egg of the Diety.
I have not acted without his knowledge; he ordained that
I should so act." This was the declaration of Piankhi,
an Ethiopian monarch of Egypt, when marching against
the native princes that had revolted from him. This
assertion embodies the pride of birth that characterized
the Ethiopian of antiquity. They knew that they were
a great people and under a special dispensation. They
believed that they had a covenant with the Diety, and
all the privileges and obligations that went with it, all
this favor having come to them through their merits of
good principle and acceptable conduct.
Lower Nubia had been dominated by the Egyptians
for over eighteen hundred years while the country above
the second cataract to the region of the fourth cataract
had for the most part been under Egyptian control for
something like a thousand years. The fertile and
productive land below the fourth cataract, the rich gold
mines in the mountains east of Lower Nubia, which
compensated in some measure for its agricultural pov-
erty, and the active trade from the Sudan which was
constantly passing through the country made it a land
of resources and possibilities which the Egyptianized
Nubian, slowly awakening to his birthright, was now
beginning to realize.
"Sheshouk I. had still held Nubia and it is probable
that the cataract country was still a dependency of
Egypt until the middle of the Twenty-second Dynasty,
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 2$
about 850 B. C. Nubia had for five centuries been very
closely connected with Thebes and the temple of Amon.
The control of the Theban High Priest had finally
strengthened into full possession of Nubia for two hun-
dred and fifty years. It must have been the Theban
priesthood, perhaps as political exiles, who founded the
Amonite theocracy which now as a fully developed
Nubian king emerges upon our view, with its seat of
government at Napata, just below the fourth cataract.
Napata had been an Egyptian frontier station from the
days of Amenhotep II. seven hundred years earlier.
It was the remotest point in Egyptian Nubia and hence
safest from attack from the north."
The state which arose here was in accordance with our
explanation of its origin, a reproduction of the Amonite
theocracy at Thebes.
The state god was Amon and he continually inter-
vened directly in the affairs of government by specific
oracles. The king bore all the Pharaonic titles, calling
himself Lord of the Two Lands as if he governed all
Egypt. He built temples of Egyptian architecture,
decorated with Egyptian reliefs and bearing hiero-
glyphic inscriptions and dedications of the traditional
Egyptian form. By 721 B. C. we suddenly find Pianki,
the Nubian (Negro) king, then over twenty years upon
the throne, in possession of Upper Egypt as far north as
Heracleopolis just south of the Fayum, with Nubian *
(Negro) garrisons in the more important towns. At
this time the Twenty-third Dynasty, represented by
Osorkon III at Bubastis, was no longer actually ruling
more than the district of Bubastis and surrounded by
rivals in every important town in the Delta. This
* Nubian here we interpret as Negro.
26 CARLISLE
Saite had subdued all his neighbors in the western Delta
and, beginning the absorption of Upper Egypt, had
already captured Hermopolis. Painkhi sent an army
against him which drove him back into the Delta and
began the siege of Hermopolis. Several months later
Piankhi himself reached Hermopolis with reinforcements
and vigorously pushed the siege, soon forcing the sur-
render of the place.
The advance to the Delta, sailing down the Bahr
Yusuf , was then begun, and the chief towns of the west
side surrendered one after another on seeing Piankhi's
force. The Nubian (Negro) king offered sacrifice to the
gods in all the cities which he passed and took possession
of all the available property for his own treasury and the
estate of Amon. On reaching Memphis it was found to
be very strongly fortified by Tefnakhte who exhorted
the garrison to rely on their strong walls, their plenti-
ful supplies and the high water which protected the east
side from attack, while he rode away northward for re-
inforcements. Having landed on the north of the city,
Piankhi, surprised at the strength of the place, devised a
shrewd plan of assault, which speaks highly for his skill
as a strategist. The high walls on the west of the city
had been recently raised still higher, and it was evident
that the east side, protected by waters, perhaps artifi-
cially raised, was being neglected.
Here was the harbour, where the ships now floated so
high that their bow ropes were fastened among the houses
of the city. Piankhi sent his fleet against the harbour
and quickly captured all the shipping. Then taking
command in person he rapidly ranged the captured
craft, together with his own fleet, along the eastern walls,
thus furnishing footing for his assaulting lines which he
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 2?
immediately sent over the ramparts and captured the
city, before its eastern defenses could be strengthened
against him.
The entire region of Memphis then submitted, where-
upon the Delta dynasts also appeared in numbers with
gifts for Piankhi and signified their submission. Piankhi
now crossed the river and followed the old sacred road
to Heliopolis, where he camped by the harbour. His
annals narrate at length how he entered the holy of holies
of the sun-god here, that he might be recognized as his
son and heir to the throne of Egypt, according to the
custom since the remote days of the Fifth Dynasty.
Here King Osorkon III of the Twenty-third Dynasty at
Bubastis, now but a petty dynast like the rest, visited
Piankhi and recognized the Nubian's suzerainty. Hav-
ing then moved his camp to a point just east of Athribis,
Piankhi there received the submission of the principal
Delta bards, fifteen in number.
Meantime the desperate Tefnakhte, having been driven
from his last fortress, had taken refuge on one of the
remote islands in the western mouths of the Nile. Many
miles of vast Delta morass and network of irrigation
canals separated Piankhi from the fugitive.
It would have been a hazardous undertaking to dis-
patch an army into such a region. When therefore,
Tefnakhte sent gifts and an humble message of submis-
sion requesting that Piankhi send to him a messenger
with whom he might go to a neighboring temple and take
the oath of allegiance to his Nubian suzerian, Piankhi
was very glad to accept the proposal. This done, a
Nubian Pharaoh had obtained complete recognition,
had supplanted the Libyans and was lord of all Egypt.
When his Delta vassals had paid Piankhi a last visit,
28 CARLISLE
he loaded his ships with the riches of the North and sailed
away to his southern capital amid the acclamation of the
people. Arrived at Napata, Piankhi erected in the
temple of Amon a magnificent granite stela, inscribed on
all four sides, recording in detail the entire campaign.
It is the clearest and most rational account of a military
expedition which has survived from ancient Egypt.
It is this document of course which has enabled us to
follow Piankhi in his conquest of the North (Bar. IV,
796-883) . Tefnakhte, while he had nominally submitted
to Piankhi, only awaited the withdrawal of the Ethio-
ian to resume his designs. He eventually succeeded in
establishing a kingdom of Lower Egypt, assumed the
Pharaonic titles and ruled at least eight years over a
feudal state like that of the Twenty-second Dynasty.
His reign is parallel with the last years of the Twenty-
third Dynasty, which seems to have struggled on at
Bubastis as vassal princes under him. In Upper Egypt
Pankhi controlled Thebes long enough to do some slight
building in the temple of Mut.
In order to gain the control of the fortune of Amon with
an appearance of legitimacy, Piankhi had caused his
sister- wife, Amenardis, to be adopted by Shepnupet, the
daughter of Osorkon III, who was sacerdotal princess of
Thebes. The device was probably not new. But as
Piankhi withdrew, the decadent Twenty-third Dynasty
put forth its last expiring effort and established an
ephemeral authority in Thebes. Piankhi's invasion of
Egypt and entire reign there seems therefore to have
fallen into the reign of Osorkon III.
But the rising power of Sais soon overwhelmed the
failing Bubastites and Bocchoris son of Tefnakhte of Sais,
gained the throne of Lower Egypt about 718 B. C., to be
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 2Q
later known as the founder and, in so far as we know, the
sole king of the Twenty-fourth Dynasty.
Egypt had now been under the divided authority of
numerous local dynasts for probably over a century and
a half. With its vast works of irrigation slowly going to
ruin, its roads unprotected, intercourse between cities
unsafe, and the large communities suffering from constant
turmoil and agitation, the productive capacity of the
country was steadily waning, while foreign commerce
disappeared. The hopeless state of the country was
clearly understood by the sagacious Isaiah, who declared
to his people "Behold the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud
and cometh unto Egypt ; and the idols of Egypt shall be
moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall
melt in the midst of it. And I will stir up the Egyptians
against the Egyptians; and they shall fight every one
against his brother and every one against his neighbor;
city against city and kingdom against kingdom. And I
will give over the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel
lord, and a fierce king shall rule over them saith the
Lord the Lord of Hosts. The princes of Zoan are
utterly foolish the counsel of the wisest counsellors of
Pharaoh is become brutish.
The princes of Zoan are become fools; the princes of
Noph (Napata) are deceived; they have caused Egypt
to go astray that are the cornerstone of her tribes.
The Lord hath mingled a spirit of perverseness in the
midst of her. They have caused Egypt to go astray
in every work thereof as a drunken man staggering in
his vomit. Neither shall there be for Egypt any work
which head or tail, palm branch or rush, may do." (Is.
XIX.) No truer picture could possibly be portrayed.
30 CARLISLE
SHABAKA (REIGN OF).
Some ten years after the retirement of Piankhi, the
Nubian kings again appeared in the North. Piankhi
had now been succeeded by his brother Shabaka, with
whom the uninterrupted series of pure Ethiopian royal
names begins. We possess no native records of his
conquest of the country, but Manetho states that he
burned Bocchoris alive. Lower Egypt was subdued,
Ethiopian Supremacy acknowledged, and Shabaka en-
trenched himself so firmly that he became founder of the
Twenty-fifth Dynasty (or Ethiopian) as reported by
Manetho. Appreciating the serious danger of Assyria's
presence on his very borders, Shabaka immediately sent
his agents among the Syro-Palestinian states to excite
them to revolt. In Philistia, Judah, Moabaud, Edom,
he promised the vassals of Assyria support in rebellion
against their Ninevite Suzerain.
Remembering the ancient supremacy of Egypt,
failing to understand the state of decadent importance
into which she had fallen, and anxious to shake off
oppressive Assyrian yoke, they lent a ready ear to the
emissaries of Shabaka. Only in Judah did the prophet
statesman, Isaiah, foresee the futility of depending upon
Egypt, and the final catastrophe which should overtake
her at the hands of Assyria. The vigilant Assyrian,
however, hearing of the projected alliance, acted so
quickly that the conspirators were glad to drop their
designs and protest fidelity. In spite of difficulties in
Babylon and rebellions in the north, the able and aggres-
sive Sargon pushed the consolidation of his power with
brilliant success and left to his son Sennacherib in 705
B. C. the first stable and firmly compacted empire ever
founded by a Semitic power.1
>• i Is. XX, Wang: Bar IV, 920.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 31
Sennacherib was embarrassed in his earlier years
with the usual complications in Babylon. Maraduk-
baliddin (Mero-dach-Baladan) an able and active
claimant of the Babylonian throne, who had already
caused Sennacherib's father much trouble, now sent
his emissaries to stir up defection and create a diversion
in his favor in the west. As a result Luli, the energetic
king of Tyre, Hezekiah of Judah, the dynasts of Edom,
Moab and Ammon with the chiefs of their Beduin
neighbors, in fact all the southern half of the Assyrian
conquests in the west besides Egypt, were finally or-
ganized in a great alliance against Nineveh. Before the
allies could act in concert Sennacherib suddenly appeared
in the west, marched down the Phoenician coast, captur-
ing all its strongholds save Tyre; and pressed on south-
ward to the revolting Philistine cities. Here having
punished Askalon he advanced to Altaqu, where he
came upon the mother army gathered by the tardy
Shabaka among his northern vassals whom Sennacherib
calls "the Kings of Mucri (Egypt).
We know nothing of the strength of this force, al-
though Sennacherib claims that they were "without
number"; but it is safe to conclude that it was not a
formidable army. A loose aggregation of levies from
the domains of the local Delta princes was little fitted to
meet the compact and finely organized armies which
the Assyrian kings had gradually developed till they had
become the dread and terror of the west. Although
small Egyptian contingents had before served as auxil-
iaries against the Assyrians, the armies of the two em-
pires on the Nile and the Tigris had never before faced
each other. Sennacherib led his own power in person
while the Egyptian army was entrusted by Shabaka to
32 CARLISLE
his nephew, a son of Piankhi named Taharka (Tirharkah),
who some thirteen or fourteen years afterward became
king of Ethiopia — a fact which led the Hebrew annalist to
give him that title already at the time of this campaign.
There was but one possible issue for the battle; Senna-
cherib disposed of Taharka 's army without difficulty;
having meanwhile beleagered Jerusalem, the plague in-
fected winds from the malarial shores east of the Delta
had scattered death among his troops. This over-
whelming catastrophe, together with disquieting news
from Babylon, forced him hastily to retire to Nineveh,
thus bringing to Jerusalem the deliverance promised
by Isaiah, an event in which pious tradition afterwards
saw the destroying angel of the Lord. This deliverance
was perhaps as fortunate for Egypt as Jerusalem. For
the third time the invincible Assyrian army had stood
on the very threshold of Egypt and still the decrepit
nation on the Nile was spared the inevitable humiliation
which was now so near. The Syro-Palestinian princes,
however, were so thoroughly cowed that Egypt was
thenceforth unable to seduce them to rebellion. Like
the Hebrews, they at last recognized the truth, as mock-
ingly stated by the officers of Sennacherib to the un-
happy ambassadors of Jerusalem; "Now behold, thou
trusted upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon
Egypt ; whereon if a man lean it will go into his hand and
pierce it; so is Pharaoh king of Egypt unto all that trust
on him." l
Shabaka apparently ruled his vassal Egyptian states
for the remainder of his reign in peace. The fragments
of a clay tablet bearing the seal of Shabaka and a king
i Kings II. XIX.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO
33
of Assyria, found at Kuyunjek may indicate some agree-
ment between the two nations. At Thebes, Shabaka
reinstated his sister, Amenardis, who must have been
temporarily expelled by Osorkon III.
He built a chapel at Karnak and his building operations
necessitated an expedition to the distant quarries of
Hammamat. We also find records of his temple restora-
tions at Thebes and it is evident that he governed Egypt
at least in his relations with the temples, precisely as a
native Pharaoh would have done. It was probably
Shabaka who now broke the power of the High Priest
at Amon, of whose importance we shall see further as
we proceed.
SHABATAKA.
About 700 B. C. Shabaka was succeeded by Shabataka
another Ethiopian whose connection with the reigning
Ethiopian or Nubian family is a little uncertain, although
Manetho, who calls him Sebichos, makes him a son of
34 CARLISLE
Shabaka. As the western vassals remained quiet and
Sennacherib was now absorbed in his operations at the
other extremity of his empire, Shabataka was unmolested
by the Assyrian.
His name is rare in Egypt but it is evident from the
conditions which survived him that he was entirely
unable to exterminate the local dynasts and consolidate
the power of Egypt. His reign ended about 688 B. C.
TAHARKA (TIRHARKAH).
It is at this juncture that we can trace the rising
fortunes of a son of Piankhi, prince Taharka, whose
features as preserved in contemporary sculptures show
unmistakable negroid characteristics. He had been
entrusted with the command of the army in the cam-
paign against Sennacherib. While we know nothing
of the circumstances which brought about his advent
to the throne, Manetho states that leading an army from
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 35
Ethiopia he slew Sebichos, who must be Shabataka, and
seized the crown. The contemporary monuments, with-
out intimation of these events, abruptly picture him in
Tanis as king, summoning his mother, whom he has not
seen in many years, from Napata to Tanis, that she may
assume her proper station as queen mother there. In
view of this fact and the trouble to be anticipated from
Assyria, it is not improbable that the Ethiopians at this
time maintained Tanis as their Egyptian residence.
For some thirteen years Taharka ruled his kingdom
without interference from Assyria. The west had for
twenty years seen nothing of Sennacherib, who was now
assassinated by his son in 68 1 B. C. As soon as Esar-
haddon could arrange the affairs of the great empire to
which he had succeeded, he determined to resort to the
only possible remedy for the constant interference of
Egypt with the authority of Assyria in Palestine, viz.,
the conquest of the Nile country and humiliation of the
Pharaoh. With farseeing thoroughness he laid his plans
36 CARLISLE
for the execution of this purpose and his army was
knocking at the frontier fortresses of the eastern Delta
in 674 B. C. But Taharka, who was a man of far greater
ability than his two Ethiopian predecessors, must have
made a supreme effort to meet the crisis. The out-
come of the battle (673 B. C.) was unfavorable for the
Assyrian, if indeed, as the documents perhaps indi-
cate, the Assyrian did not suffer positive defeat. But
Esarhaddon nevertheless quietly continued his prepara-
tions for the conquest of Egypt. Baal, king of Tyre,
perhaps encouraged by the indecisive result of the first
Assyrian invasion, then rebelled, making common cause
with Taharka. In 670 B. C. Esarhaddon was again
in the west at the head of his forces. Having invested
Tyre, he defeated and scattered the Egyptian army.
As the Ethiopian fell back upon Memphis Esarhaddon
pressed him closely and beseiged and captured the city,
which fell a rich prey to the cruel and rapacious Ninevite
army. Fleeing southward, Taharka abandoned Lower
Egypt, which was immediately organized by Esarhaddon
into dependencies of Assyria.
He records the names of twenty lords of the Delta
formerly Ethiopian vassals who now took the oath of
fealty to him. Among these names, written in cuniform,
a number may be recognized as those of the same men
with eighteen of whom Piankhi had to deal in the same
region.
Necho, doubtless descendant of Tefnakhte occupies the
most prominent place among them as prince of Sais and
Memphis. The list also includes a prince of Thebes,
but Esarhaddon possessed no more than a nominal
authority in Upper Egypt at this time. As he returned
to Nineveh northward along the coast road he hewed
in the rock at the Dog River, beside the triumphant
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 37
stelar of Rameses II, a record of his great achievement,
while in Samal in North Syria he erected a similar
monument representing himself, of heroic stature, leading
two captives, of whom one is probably Baal of Tyre and
the other, as his negroid features indicate, is the unfortu-
nate Taharka.
After the domination of Libyan and Nubian in turn,
Egypt was now a prey to a third foreign conqueror who,
however, differed essentially from the others in that he
resided abroad and evinced not the slightest sympathy
with Egyptian institutions and customs. The result was
that the Delta kinglets who had sworn allegiance to the
Ninevite immediately plotted with Taharka for the
resumption of his rule in Lower Egypt, which he there-
upon assumed without much delay on the withdrawal
of the Assyrian army. Esarhaddon was thus forced to
begin his work over again; but in 668 B.C., while on the
march to resume operations in Egypt, he died. With
but slight delay his son Ashurbanipal continued the
campaign, and placed one of his commanders in charge
of the expedition.
Between Memphis and the frontier, eastern Delta
Taharka was again routed. He fled to Thebes this time
pursued by the Assyrians who made the forty days
march thither determined to expel him from Egypt.
Whether the enemy actually captured Thebes at this time
is somewhat doubtful. In any case Ashurbanipal was
unable to extend his authority to Upper Egypt. He had
hardly restored his supremacy in the Delta when his
rivals there again began communicating with Taharka
purposing his restoration as before. But this corre-
spondence with Taharka was discovered by the Assyrian
officials in Egypt and they were sent to Nineveh in
chains. There the wily Necho, whom Esarhaddou had
38 CARLISLE
made king of Sais, was able to win the confidence of
Ashurbanipal, who pardoned him, loaded him with
honors and restored him to his kingdom in Sais while his
son was appointed to rule Athribis. At the same time
Ashurbanipal accompanied him with Assyrian officials
intended, of course, to be a check upon his conduct.
Taharka was now unable to gain any further foothold
among the Assyrian vassals in the Delta. He probably
held Thebes, where he controlled the fortune of Amon by
causing his sister Shepnupet to be adopted by Amenar-
dis the "Divine Votress or sacerdotal princess of Thebes,
who had been appointed by Piankhi in the same way.
At Napata, Taharka built two considerable temples
and the Ethiopian capital evidently became a worthy
royal residence in his time.
He was an enterprising prince engaged in many wars
and a determined opponent of the Assyrian. His name
is read on Egyptian monuments as Tahark or Torek
and his face which appears on them is expressive of
determination. In the latter part of his life, his star ulti-
mately paled but not from any lack of courage or resolu-
tion or good faith on his part. He struggled gallantly
against the Assyrian power for above thirty years, was
never wanting to his confederates and was among the
m'ost distinguished monarchs of his race and period.
(Note). Poselleni in exploring the tomb of a nurse of a daughter
of Taharka at Thebes found beside the mummy in a case of wood a
bronze mirror with a cover which protected it from the air and turned
aside on a pin to allow of its being used. The polished surface of the
mirror retained enough of its brightness when discovered to reflect
the face.
Taharka survived but a few months his appointment
of Tanutamon, a son of Shabaka as co-regent, who then
succeeded to the crown in 663 B. C.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 39
TANUTAMON.
Encouraged by a favorable dream Tanutamon under-
took the recovery of Lower Egypt, defeated the Assyrian
commander, retook Memphis and demanded the sub-
mission of the Delta dynasts. He had hardly settled in
Memphis, when Ashurbanipal's army appeared and
drove the Ethiopian for the last time from Lower Egypt.
The Assyrians pursued him to Thebes, and as he inglori-
ously withdrew southward, they sacked and plundered
the magnificent capital of Egypt's age of splendor.
As the Assyrians withdrew from Thebes, Tanutamon
again entered the desolated city where he maintained
himself for at least six years more till 655 B. C. By 654
B. C. he had disappeared from Thebes whether by death
or retirement and his disappearance was the termination
of Ethiopian Supremacy in Egypt.
Withdrawing to Napata the Ethiopians never made
another attempt to subdue the kingdom of the Lower
river but gave their attention to the development of
Nubia.1
IV.
THE MACROBIAN ETHIOPIANS.
BY HERODOTUS.
Cambyses planned three several expeditions, one
against the Carthaginians, another against the Ammoni-
ans and a third against the Macrobian Ethiopians, who
inhabit that part of Libya which lies upon the South
Sea. In forming his plans, he determined to send a naval
» James Henry Breasted, Ancient Egyptians, Chap. XXVI.
40 CARLISLE
force against the Carthaginians and against the Ammon-
ians, a detachment of his land forces, and against the
Ethiopians, spies in the first instance, who were to see
the table of the sun which was said to exist among the
Ethiopians and besides to explore other things, and to
cover their design, they were to carry presents to the
king. The table of the sun is said to be of the following
description. There is a meadow in the suburbs filled
with the cooked flesh of all sorts of quadrupeds, in this
the several magistrates of the city, for some purpose,
place the flesh at night, and in the day time whoever
chooses comes and feasts on it. The inhabitants say,
that the earth itself, from time to time produces these
things. Such is the description given of what is called
the table of the sun. When the Ichthyophagic spies
came to Cambyses from Elephantine, he dispatched them
to the Ethiopians, having instructed them what to say,
carrying presents consisting of a purple cloak, a golden
necklace, bracelets, an alabaster box of ointment and a
cask of palm wine. These Ethiopians, to whom Camby-
ses sent, are said to be the tallest and handsomest of all
men; and they say that they have customs different
from those of other nations, and especially the following
with regard to the regal power; for they confer the
sovereignty upon the man whom they consider to be
of the largest stature and to possess strength proportion-
able to his size.
When, therefore the Ichthyophagi arrived among this
people, they gave the presents to the'king, and addressed
him as follows: "Cambyses, king of the Persians,
desirous of becoming your friend and ally, has sent us,
bidding us confer with you, and he presents" you with
these gifts, which are such as he himself most delights
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 41
in." But the Ethiopian knowing that they came as
spies spoke thus to them. "Neither has the king of
Persia sent you with these presents to me because he
valued my alliance; nor do you speak the truth, for you
have come as spies of my kingdom; nor is he a just
man; for if he were just, he would not desire any
other territory than his own; nor would he reduce
people into servitude who have done him no injury.
However, give him this bow, and say these words to
him: "The king of the Ethiopians advises the king of
the Persians, when the Persians can thus easily draw a
bow of this size, then to make war on the Macrobian
Ethiopians with more numerous forces; but until that
time, let him thank the gods, who have not inspired the
sons of the Ethiopians with a desire of adding another
land to their own." Having spoken thus and unstrung
the bow he delivered it to the comers.
Then taking up the purple cloak he asked what it was
and how made; and when the Ichthyophagi told him
the truth respecting the purple and the manner of
dyeing, he said that the men are deceptive, and their
garments are deceptive also. Next he inquired about the
necklace and bracelets and when the Ichthyophagi
explained to him their use as ornaments, the king laugh-
ing and supposing them to be fetters, said that they
have stronger fetters than these.
Thirdly, he inquired about the ointment; and when
they told him about its composition and use, he made
the same remark as he had on the cloak. But when he
came to the wine, and inquired how it was made, being
very much delighted with the draught, he farther asked
what food the king made use of and what was the longest
age to which a Persian lived. They answered that he
42 CARLISLE
fed on bread, describing the nature of wheat; and that
the longest life of a Persian was eighty years. Upon
this, the Ethiopian said that he was not at all surprised
if men who fed on dung lived so few years; and they
would not be able to live so many years, if they did not
refresh themselves with this beverage showing the wine
to the Ichthyophagi; for in this he admitted they were
surpassed by the Persians. The Ichthyophagi inquiring
in turn of the king concerning the life and diet of the
Ethiopians, he said that most of them attained to a
hundred and twenty years and some even exceeded that
term, and that their food was boiled flesh and their
drink milk. And when the spies expressed astonish-
ment at the number of years, he led them to a fountain
by washing in which they became sleek as if it had been
of oil, and an odor proceeded from it as of violets. The
water of this fountain, the spies said, is so weak that
nothing is able to float upon it, neither wood nor such
things as lighter than wood; but everything sinks to
the bottom. If this water is truly such as it is said to be,
it may be they are long lived by reason of the abundant
use of it. Leaving this fountain he conducted them to
the common prison, where all were fettered with golden
chains; for among these Ethiopians brass is the most rare
and precious of all metals. After having viewed the
prison they next visited that which is called the table
of the sun. After this they visited last of all their
sepulchres which are said to be prepared from crystal
in the following manner: when they have dried the
body, either as the Egyptians do, or in some other way,
they plaster it all over with gypsum, and paint it making
it as much as possible resemble real life; they then put
round it a hollow column made of crystal, which they
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 43
dig up in abundance and is easily wrought. The body
being in the middle of the column is plainly seen nor does
it emit an unpleasant smell nor is it in any way offen-
sive; and it is all visible as the body itself. The nearest
relations keep the column in their houses for a year, offer-
ing to it the first fruits of all, and performing sacrifices;
after that time they carry it out and place it somewhere
near the city.
The spies having seen everything returned home;
and when they had reported all that had passed, Camby-
ses, being greatly enraged immediately marched against
the Ethiopians, without making any provision for the
subsistence of his army or once considering that he was
going to carry his arms to the remotest part of the world;
but as a madman and not in possession of his senses, as
soon as he heard the report of the Ichthyophagi, he set
out on his march, ordering the Greeks, who were present
to stay behind and taking with him all his land forces.
When the army reached Thebes, he detached about
fifty thousand men, and ordered them to reduce the
Ammonians to slavery, and to burn the oracular temple
of Jupiter, while he with the rest of his army, marched
against the Ethiopians, but before the army had passed
over a fifth part of the way all the provisions that they
had were exhausted, and after the provisions, the beasts
of burden were eaten, and likewise failed. Now if
Cambyses, when he learned this, had altered his purpose,
and had led back his army even after his first error, he
would have proved himself to be a wise man; but now
without any reflection, he still continued advancing.
The soldiers, as long as they could gather any from the
earth supported life by eating herbs; but when they
reached the sands some of them had recourse to a horrid
44 CARLISLE
expedient, for, taking one man in ten by lot they
devoured him. When Cambyses heard this, shocked
at their eating one another, he abandoned his expedition
against the Ethiopians, marched back and reached
Thebes, after losing a great part from his army. From
Thebes, he went down to Memphis, and suffered the
Greeks to sail away. This ended the expedition against
the Ethiopians.1
V.
NEGRO-EGYPTIAN PHARAOHS
AMENOPHITES AND THOTMESITES NEW
EMPIRE.
XVII. THEBAN DYNASTY.
The Ethiopians and Egyptians being closely allied, it is
not surprising that we find a marked Negro caste among
the latter who were but another African people and
between whom there was but slight physical differences.
Their intermarriages so blending the types that there
was no line of division between them, especially was this
true of the ruling caste.
All sculptures and monuments of the earliest peoples
are predominantly negroid. Royal heads four thousand
years old belonging to the fourth dynasty recently
unearthed are undoubtedly of Negro origin. Hence,
Egyptian history is Negro history as we have abun-
dant proof from the earliest dynasties through Egypt's
age of splendor, the royal line was strongly imbued
with the blood of the Negro, therefore we have chosen
the name Negro-Egyptian as most fitting for the Phara-
ohs of the seventeenth dynasty, especially.
»3ook III. 17-26.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 45
Piankhi who won the title of Pharaoh by conquest was
the first ruler of Egypt of pure Negro blood. He was
the father of Tirhakra, mentioned in our Bible, the
sound of whose name awed the great Sennacherib.
These names and many others with which our readers
will become familiar should be precious to us as they
represent men who were our very own, bone of our bone
and flesh of our flesh. What Cromwell was to the
English, Napoleon to the French, these great Negro-
Egyptian Pharaohs were to the African Negroes.
This period about 1700 B. C. begins with the reign
of Aahmes, Amasis a native Egyptian, who is credited
with the expulsion of the Hyksos with whom he warred
five years. These wars concluded he turned his atten-
tion to the regions south of Egypt and led an expedition
against them. At first he swept everything before him
and victory seemed certain, but the Negroes were not
such easy prey. A Nubian chief, Teta-an, rallied forces
and went out and forced Aahmes back, retook the
regions of the south and destroying the temples of the
Egyptian garrisons and annihilating the Egyptian
power." This was the beginning of a long struggle,
lasting until the twenty-first year of the reign of Amasis
who was finally victorious and took Teta-an prisoner.
Much credit is due this chief and his army in their deter-
mined resistance to retain the control of their territory.
Aahnes having established Egyptian control over the
country between the First and Second Cataract, gave
himself to domestic affairs and began to repair the
temples and other sacred edifices. His reign covered
twenty-five years. He married an Ethiopian princess
and conferred upon her the throne name of Nefert-ari-
Aahmes, "the beautiful companion of Aahmes." Her
46 CARLISLE
complexion was of ebon blackness. This beautiful
Cushite princess became his favorite wife and the
mother of succeeding Pharoahs. She is called, "the
daughter, sister, wife and mother of a king." This
alliance between Aahmes and Nefert-ari was not merely
a political one. "His queen was certainly regarded as
an important personage. She was called "the wife of
the god Ammon," and enjoyed some high post con-
AAHMBS-NOFRE-ABI.
nected with the worship of that god with Thebes;
Aahbes commemorated her upon his monuments;
during her son's reign she held for a time the reins
of power; while in after ages she was venerated as
"ancestress and founder of the eightieth dynasty."
Amenhotek I the son and successor of Aahmes reigned
under the tutelage of his mother, continued the Ethiopian
campaigns and embellished Thebes. He was first of the
line of Negro-Egyptian Pharaohs. He was a mother's
son of Cush, whose maternal grandsires were full blooded
Negroes "of the best physical type." He associated
THE ANCIENT NEGRO
47
his mother, the beautiful black queen, with himself in
government. On his monuments his mother shares a
place equal with his own. "She is joined with him in
the worship of the gods; and she is "the lady of the
two lands" as he is lord of them." Amenophis married
an Egyptian lady, his son by her he named Thotmes.
The reign of Thotmes I was marked as the period of
Egypt's first attempt to carry arms into Asia and thus
retaliate against the oppression she suffered from the
Hyksos which resulted in a spirit of military activity
and conquest covering three centuries and raised it to
its zenith. Thothmes I not only extended his dominions
in the south but led successive campaigns into Asia. On
his return to Egypt he proceeded to enlarge and embel-
AAHMBS.
THOTMBS L
lish the temple of Ammon at Thebes in return for the
victories which this god was supposed to have made
possible for him. His reign is supposed to have been
twenty-one years.
Thotmes married Aahmes, thought to be his sister, by
48 CARLISLE
whom he had a daughter and two sons, Hasheps or Hat-
asu, the sons, having the same name as their father,
Thotmes II and Thotmes III and great grand children
of Aahmes and Nefert-ari-Aahmes.
The reign of Thotmes II was uneventful except for
an expedition against the Arabs. His sister Hatasu,
being more ambitious for power and having an influence
over him was permitted to share his throne and virtually
directed the affairs of government. Together they
made additions to the temples. Thotmes II 's brief reign
ended, Hasheps became sole ruler, and in every way as a
king — masculine of mind, she donned male attire and
THOTMJS IL
the title of a king. Her young brother was hardly more
than a subject. She erected many buildings of elegant
taste — obelisks at Thebes in the temple of Ammon —
statues of herself in various places and extended her
sovereignty over the land of Punt by means of a naval
expedition which returned to Egypt laden with the
wealth of the country. She tardily acknowledged the
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 49
majority of her brother and reluctantly gave him recog-
nition as sovereign by allowing his name to appear on
public monuments; after having held absolute control
of the government for fifteen years. A woman of
wonderful executive ability, yet unscrupulous in her
lust for power, her reign compared favorably with that
of preceding Pharaohs. Her reign as co-regent with
Thotmes III was about seven years. As great-grand-
daughter of the Ethiopian queen Nefert-ari-Ahames,
she deserves an honored place.
THOTMES III.
Thotmes III was beyond doubt the greatest of Negro-
Egyptian Pharaohs and Conquerors and has been called
THOTXXS III.
"the Alexander of Egyptian history." He led an
expedition into Western Asia forced the states to pay
him tribute and to acknowledge his suzerainty. He
carried on at least eight successive campaigns with the
$0 CARLISLE
states of Asia covering a period from his twenty-third
to his fortieth year. "Ambitious, restless, brave even
to rashness, equally remarkable as a warrior and as a
general successful in his naval no less than in his mili-
tary operations he spread the name and fame of Egypt
through distant lands alarmed the great empires of
Western Asia conquered and held in subjection all
Syria and Western Mesopotamia as far as the Khabour
River, probably reduced Cyprus, chastised the Arabs,
crushed rebellion in Nubia, and left to his successor
a dominion extending above eleven hundred miles from
north to south, and (in places) four hundred and fifty
miles from west to east. At the same time he dis-
tinguished himself as a builder. Restorer or founder
of a score of temples, designer of the great "Hall of
Pillars" at Thebes, by far the largest apartment that
the world has as yet seen, erector of numerous gigantic
obelisks, constructor and adorner of vast propylaea,
author or restorer of at least five huge colossi, he has
left the impress of his presence in Egypt more widely
than almost any other of her kings while at the same time
he has supplied to the great capitals of the modern world
their most striking Egyptian monuments.
Thotmes III died after a reign of fifty-four years,
probably at about the age of sixty."1
AMENOPHIS II.
Amenophis II son of Thotmes III, succeeded his father
on the throne and found it necessary to put down rebel-
lion in the states of Asia who, as was common at that
period, renounced their allegiance to Egypt upon the
1 Rawlinson's Ancient Egypt, p. 259-260.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 51
death of Thotmes and assumed their independence.
Amenophis is said to have re-established Egyptian power
in all the countries previously subdued by his father,
this alone was no small task and must have kept him
busily employed. His architecture is said to be far
inferior to that of his predecessors. His reign was of
short duration. His son who succeeded him on the
THOTHM IV.
AMUKOPH II.
throne took the name of Thotmes that of his grandfather
and was known as Thotmes IV. He was not the eldest
son of Amenophis but was his father's immediate succes-
sor which he attributed to some special favor of the god
Hanuachis, this god having appeared to him in a dream.
In some way associating Hanuachis with the sphinx, he
dug away the accumulation of sand at its base, "set up
between the fore paws of the Sphinx a massive memorial
tablet twelve feet high and eight feet broad on which he
recorded the circumstances of his dream. In front of his
memorial tablet and also within the paws of the mon-
52 CARLISLE
strous animal he Thotmes constructed a small temple
for the worship of the god with whom he identified it.
One expedition against the Hittites of Syria and another
against the Cushites or people of Ethiopia are all that
can be assigned to him. The former he commemorated
in the great temple of Ammon at Thebes, the latter in
the Nubian temple of Amada."
He was a great sportsman, his favorite game was the
lion hunt, a fondness for swift horses that "outstripped
the wind" according to his own statement.1
AMENOPHIS III.
Thotmes IV married a foreigner, an Ethiopian or
Cushite, named Maut-Hemwa by whom he had a son,
Amen-hotep or Amenophis who succeeded him. Ameno-
phis III married a foreigner, Taia who was an Ethiopian.
Amenophis was deeply attached to his mother, Queen
Maut-Hemwa and later to his wife, Queen Taia whose
advice and counsel he sought and acted upon. He gave
little attention to military enterprise, the boundaries of
Egypt remained the same as when he inherited the throne
but his building activities more than made up the
deficit. He began in the first year of his reign to exca-
vate stone for the repair of temples and throughout his
reign of thirty six years, his zeal seemed untiring in the
erection of magnificent buildings which have been of
greater attraction to travellers than those of any other
Pharaoh. Amenophis erected the great temple of
Ammon at Luxor, one of the most magnificent in all
Egypt, embellished that of Karnak with a new propylon,
built two new temples to Ammon and Maut and united
1 Rawlinson's anc. Egypt Vol. II.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO
53
the whole quarter of the temples at Karnak with the
new temple of Ammon at Luxor by an avenue of crio-
sphinxes with the sun's disk on their heads (there was a
leaning to this worship by Amenophis). He also built
two temples to Knephor Khnum (gods) at Elephantine,
AMTJNOPH IIL Mention.
MAUT-HBMWA.
one to contain his own image at Soleb in Nubia, a shrine
with a propylon and ram-sphinxes before it at Gebel
Berkal or Napata and another shrine at Sedinga. In-
scribed tablets dated in his reign are found at Semneh
in the island of Konosso on the rocks between Philae
and Asscuan, at El-Kaab at Silsilis and at Sarabit-
el-Khadim in the Sinaitic peninsula. Of all his edifices
that which approved itself the most highly in his own
eyes was the temple or rather, perhaps, the temple-palace
of Luxor. " I built on the rocky soil," he says, " a court
of alabaster, of rose granite and of black stone. Also a
double tower gateway did I execute, because I had under-
taken to dedicate the most beautiful thing possible to
54
CARLISLE
my divine father " (i. e. Ammon). Statues of the gods
are to be seen in it everywhere. They are carved in all
their parts. A great statue was made of gold and of all
kinds of beautiful precious stones. I gave directions to
execute O Ammon, what pleased thee well to unite thee
with thy beautiful dwelling."1
TAIA.
His most remarkable work was the twin colossi,
two gigantic statues sitting, of the Pharaoh cut out of
one solid block of stone and between 60 and 70 feet high.
One has been called "vocal Memnon" because of a
musical sound that issued from it at day break, supposed
to have been caused by a fissure in the rock, caused
perhaps by earthquake, together with the action of the
sun's rays upon it.
This statue was repaired by Septimus Severus, A. D.
196.
Amenophis III was a kind and benevolent ruler, crime
1 Rawlinson's An. Egypt, Vol. II.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 55
was punished with justice, while loyalty was often liber-
ally rewarded. Amenophis reigned thirty-six years. He
was survived by his Queen Taia.
NOTE. — In the Theban tomb, there was an amazing collection of
Negro Scenes. A Negress, apparently a princess, arrives at Thebes
drawn in a plastrum by a pair of humped oxen. The driver and
groom are Egyptians, perhaps eunuchs. Following her, are multi-
tudes of Negroes bringing tribute from the Upper country and
slaves — red and black, Egyptian and Negro — of both sexes. They
have come to make offerings in the tomb of a " royal son of Kush,"
Amenoph or Amenophis, and no doubt this princess is Queen Taia.
AMUNOJH IV.
His son, Amenhotep IV, succeeded him to the throne.
He was the founder of the " Disk Heresy," or the worship
of the sun's disk. Before this new form of worship was
firmly implanted the influence of the priesthood was
successful in winning back to an extent, the adherents
of the old form and Amenhotep found it necessary to
quit Egypt. He set up an independent kingdom
56 CARLISLE
between Thebes and Memphis, Khu-aten, he beautified
it with temples and monuments and with a large num-
ber of followers, reigned twelve years in unbroken peace.
His mother was made a permanent resident of his court
and enjoyed all the honors due queen mother. To his
wife he was greatly devoted. "Sweet love fills my
heart," he says in one inscription, "for the queen and for
her young children. Grant a long life of many years
to the Queen Nefert Tii; may she keep the hand of
Pharaoh! Grant a long life to the royal daughter,
Meri-Aten, and to the royal daughter Mak-Aten and
to their children. May they keep the hand of the queen,
their mother, eternally and forever. What I swear is
a true avowal of what my heart says to me. Never is
there falsehood in what I say."1
VI.
How MOSES MADE WAR WITH THE ETHIOPIANS.
When Moses came to the age of maturity he made his
virtues manifest to the Egyptians and showed them he
was born for bringing them down and raising the Israel-
ites. And the occasion he laid hold of was this: The
Ethiopians who were next neighbors to the Egyptians
made an inroad into their country which they seized
upon and carried off the effects of the Egyptians, who in
their rage fought against them and revenged the affronts
they had received from them; but being overcome in
battle some of them were slain and the rest ran away in
a shameful manner and by that means saved themselves
whereupon the Ethiopians followed after them in the
pursuit; and thinking it would be a mark of cowardice
J Rawlinson's An. E. Vol. II.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 57
if they did not subdue all Egypt, they went on to
subdue the rest with greater vehemence; and when they
had tasted the sweets they never left of the prosecution
of the war; and as the nearest parts had not courage
enough, at first, to fight with them they proceeded as far
as Memphis and the sea itself while not one of the cities
was able to oppose them. The Egyptians under this
sad oppression betook themselves to their oracles and
prophecies, and when God had given them this counsel
to make use of Moses, the Hebrew, and take his assist-
ance, the king commanded his daughter to produce him,
that he might be the general of the army. Upon which,
when she had made him swear he would do him no harm,
she delivered him to the king and supposed his assistance
would be of great advantage to them. She withal,
reproached the priest, who, when he had before admon-
ished the Egyptians to kill him, was not ashamed to own
their want of his help. So Moses, at the persuasion of
Thermuthis and the king himself, cheerfully undertook
the business ; and the sacred scribes of both nations were
glad, those of the Egyptians that they would once more
overcome their enemies by his valor and that by the
same piece of management Moses would be slain; but
those of the Hebrews that they should escape from the
Egyptians because Moses was to be their general.
But Moses prevented the enemies and took and led his
army before those enemies were apprised of his attack-
ing them; for he did not march by the river, but by land,
where he gave a wonderful demonstration of his sagacity;
for when the ground was difficult to be passed over
because of the multitude of serpents, which it produces
in vast numbers and indeed is singular in some of those
productions which other countries do not breed and yet
58 CARLISLE
such as are worse than others in power and mischief and
an unusual fierceness of sight, some of which ascend
out of the ground unseen and also fly in the air and
so come upon men at unawares, and do them a mis-
chief, Moses invented a wonderful stratagem to preserve
the army safe and without hurt; for he made baskets,
like unto arks, of sedge and filled them with ibes, and
carried them along with them; which animal is the
greatest enemy to serpents, imaginable, for they fly
from them when they come near them, and as they
fly, they are caught and devoured by them as if it were
done by the harts; but the ibes are tame creatures and
only enemies to the serpentine kind. As soon therefore,
as Moses was come to the land which was the breeder
of these serpents, he let loose the ibes; and by their
means repelled the serpentine kind and used them for
his assistants before the army came upon the ground.
When he had then proceeded thus on his journey he
came upon the Ethiopians before they expected him;
and joining battle with them he beat them of the hopes
they had of success against the Egyptians and went on
in overthrowing their cities and indeed made a great
slaughter of these Ethiopians. Now when the Egyp-
tian army had once tasted of this prosperous success,
by the means of Moses, they did not slacken their dili-
gence insomuch that the Ethiopians were in danger of
being reduced to slavery and all sorts of destruction and
at length they retired to Saba which was a royal city of
Ethiopia and Cambyses afterward named Meroe after
the name of his own sister. The place was to be beseiged
with very great difficulty since it was both encompassed
by the Nile, quite round and the other rivers, Asapus and
Astaborus, made it a very difficult thing for such as
attempted to pass over them; for the city was situated
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 59
in a retired place and was inhabited after the manner of
an island, being encompassed with a strong wall and
having the rivers to guard from their enemies and having
great ramparts between the wall and the rivers, insomuch
that when the waters came with the greatest violence it
can never be drowned; which ramparts make it next to
impossible, for even such as are gotten over the rivers to
take the city. However, while Moses was uneasy at the
army's lying idle, for the enemies durst not come to battle,
Tharbis, who was the daughter of the king of the Ethio-
pians, happened to see Moses as he led the army near to
the walls; and fought with great courage, and admiring
the subtility of his undertaking and believing him to be
the author of the Egyptian success when they had before
despaired of recovering their liberty, and to the occasion
of the great danger the Ethiopians were in when they had
before boasted of their great achievements, she fell deeply
in love with him and upon the prevalency of that passion
sent to him the most faithful of all her servants to dis-
course with him upon their marriage.
He thereupon accepted the offer on condition she
would procure the delivering up of the city and gave the
assurance to take her to be his wife, and that when he
had once taken possession of the city he would not break
his oath to her. No sooner was the agreement made —
it took effect immediately; and when Moses had cut
off the Ethiopians, he gave thanks to God and consum-
mated his marriage and led the Egyptians back to their
own land.1
NOTE. The history of Moses as general of the Egyptians against
the Ethiopians is wholly omitted in the Bible but is thus cited by
Iraneus from Josephus and that soon after his ownage, Josephus
» Josephus Aut. Book II. Chap. V, p. 93.
60 CARLISLE
says that when Moses was nourished in the king's palace he was
appointed general of the army against the Ethiopians and conquered
them; when he married the king's daughter, because out of her
affection for him, she delivered the city up to him. Nor perhaps,
did St. Stephen refer to anything else when he said of Moses, before
he was sent by God to the Israelites that he was not only learned in
all the wisdom of the Egyptians but was also mighty in words and in
deeds.1
VII.
How MOSES FLED OUT OF EGYPT INTO MIDIAN.
Now the Egyptians after they had been preserved by
Moses, entertained a hatred toward him, as suspecting
that he would take occasion from his good success to
raise a sedition, and bring innovations into Egypt, and
told the king he ought to be slain. The king had also
some intentions, of himself, to the same purpose and this
as well out of envy at his glorious expedition at the head
of his army as out of fear of being brought low by him,
and being instigated by the sacred scribes, he was ready
to undertake to kill Moses. But when he had learned
beforehand what plots there were against him he went
away privately; and because the public roads were
watched, he took his flight through the deserts and where
his enemies could not suspect he would travel; and
though he was destitute of food he went on and despised
that difficulty courageously. And when he came to the
city of Midian which lay upon the Red Sea and was so
occasion offered him by the custom of the country, of
doing what recommended his virtue and afforded him
an opportunity of bettering his circumstances.
For that country having but little water, the shepherds
i Acts. VII-22 (Whiston).
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 6 1
used to seize on the wells, before others came, lest their
flocks should want water, and lest it should be spent
by others before they came. There were now, therefore,
to this well seven sisters that were virgins, the daughters
of Raguel, a priest, and one thought worthy, by the people
of the country, of great honor; these virgins who took
care of their father's flock, which sort of work it was
customary and very familiar for women to do in the
country of the Troglodites, they came first of all and
drew water out of the well in a quantity sufficient for
their flocks, into troughs which were made for the recep-
tion of that water. But when the shepherds came
upon the maidens and drove them away that they
might have the command of the waters themselves,
Moses, thinking it would be a terrible reproach upon
him if he overlooked the young women under unjust
oppression and should suffer the violence of the men
to prevail over the right of the maidens, he drove away
the men who had a mind to more than their share and
afforded a proper assistance to the women who, when
they had received such a benefit from him, came to
their father and told him how they had been affronted
by the shepherds, and assisted by a stranger and en-
treated that he would not let this generous action be
done in vain, nor go without a reward. Now the father
took it well from his daughters that they were so desirous
to reward their benefactor, and bid them bring Moses
into his presence, that he might be rewarded as he
deserved. And when Moses came he told him what
testimony his daughters bare to him, that he had assisted
them; and that as he admired him for his virtue he said
that Moses had bestowed such assistance on persons,
not insensible of benefits, but where they were both
62 CARLISLE
willing and able to return the kindness and even to
exceed the measure of his generosity. So he made him
his son, and gave him one of his daughters in marriage;
(Ex. II-2i) and he appointed him to be the guardian
and superintendent over his cattle, for of old all the
wealth of the barbarians was in those cattle.1
So Moses, when he understood that the Pharaoh, in
whose reign he fled away was dead, asked leave of Raguel
to go to Egypt for the benefit of his own people; and
he took with him Zipporah, the daughter of Raguel,
whom he had married and the children he had by her,
Gersom and Eleazar, and made haste into Egypt.2
VIII.
MOSES RECEIVES JETHRO, HIS FATHER-IN-LAW.
Now when Raguel, Moses's father-in-law understood
in what a prosperous condition his affairs were he wil-
lingly came to meet him; and Moses took Zipporah, his
wife and his children and pleased himself with his
coming. And when he had offered sacrifice he made a
feast for the multitude near the bush he had formerly
seen; which multitude, every one according to their
families partook of the feast. But Aaron and his
family took Raguel and sang hymns to God as to him
who had been the author and procurer of their deliver-
ance and freedom. They also praised their conductor
as by him whose virtue it was that all things had suc-
ceeded so well with them. Raguel also in his eucharisti-
•Josephus, Book II, Chap. XI.
'• Josephus, Book II, Chap. XIII.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 63
cal oration to Moses, made great encomiums upon the
whole multitude; and he could not but admire Moses, for
his fortitude and that humanity he had shown in the
deliverance of his friends.1
The next day as Raguel saw Moses in the midst of a
crowd of business, (for he determined the differences of
those that referred them to him) everyone still going to
him and supposing that they should then only obtain
justice, if he were the arbitrator; and those that lost
their causes thought it no harm, while they thought they
lost them justly and not by partiality. Raguel, how-
ever, said nothing to him at the time as not desirous to
be any hindrance to such as had a mind to make use of the
virtue of their conductor. But afterward he took him
to himself and when he had him alone he instructed him
in what he ought to do, and advised him to leave the
trouble of lesser causes to others, but himself to take
care of the greater and of the people's welfare, for that
certain others of the Hebrews might be found that were
fit to determine causes, but that nobody but a Moses
could take care of the safety of so many ten thousands.
Be not therefore insensible of thine own virtue and what
thou hast done by ministering under God to the people's
preservation. Permit, therefore, the determination of
common causes to be done by others, but do thou reserve
thyself to the attendance on God only; and look out
for methods of preserving the multitude from their
present distress. Make use of the method I suggest to
you as to human affairs, and take a review of the army
and appoint chosen rulers over tens of thousands and
then over thousands; then divide them into five hun-
> Josephus, Book III , Chap. III.
64 CARLISLE
dreds, and again into hundreds and into fifties, and
set rulers over each of them, who may distinguish them
into thirties and keep them in order, and at last number
them by twenties and by tens; and let there be one
commander over each number to be denominated from
the number of those over whom they are rulers but these
such as the whole multitude have tried and do approve
as being good and righteous men; and let these rulers
decide the controversies they have one with another.
But if any great cause arise let them bring the cognizance
of it before the rulers of a higher dignity; but if any
great difficulty arise that is too hard for even their
determination let them send it to thee. By these means
two advantages will be gained: that the Hebrews will
have justice done and thou wilt be able to attend con-
stantly upon God and procure him to be more favorable
to the people.
This was the admonition of Raguel; and Moses re-
ceived his advice very kindly and acted according to
his suggestion. Nor did he conceal the invention of
this method nor pretend to it himself, but informed the
multitude who it was that invented it, nay, he has named
Raguel in the books he wrote as the person who invented
this ordering of the people as thinking it right to give
true testimony to worthy persons, although he might
have gotten reputation by ascribing to himself the in-
ventions of other men.
Whence we may learn the virtuous disposition of Moses.1
NOTE. This manner of electing the judges and officers of the
Israelites by the testimonies and suffrages of the people before they
were ordained by God or by Moses deserves to be carefully noted
because it was the pattern in the like manner of the choice and ordi-
nation of Bishops, Presbyters and Deacons in the Christian church.
(Whistm).
i Jos. Book III. Chap. IV.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 65
IX.
THE QUEEN or SHEBA.
There was then a woman queen of Egypt and Ethiopia;
she was inquisitive into philosophy and one that on
other accounts was to be admired. When this queen
heard of the virtue and prudence of Solomon, she had
a great mind to see him, she being desirous to be satis-
fied by her own experience and not by bare hearing (for
reports thus heard are likely enough to comply with a
false opinion while they wholly depend on the credit of
the relaters) ; so she resolved to come to him, and that
especially in order to have a trial of his wisdom while she
proposed questions of very great difficulty and entreated
that he would solve their hidden meaning. Accord-
ingly she came to Jerusalem with rich splendor, and rich
furniture; for she brought with camels laden with gold,
with several sorts of sweet spices and with precious
stones. Now upon the king's kind reception of her, he
both showed a great desire to please her, and easily
comprehending in his mind the meaning of her curious
questions she propounded to him he resolved them
sooner than any one could have expected, so she was
amazed at the wisdom of Solomon, and discovered that
it was more excellent upon trial than what she had
heard by report beforehand; and especially she was
surprised at the fineness and largeness of his royal palace,
and not less at the good order of the apartments for she
observed that the king had therein shown great wisdom;
but she was beyond measure astonished at the house
which was called the forest of Lebanon as also at the
magnificence of his daily table, and the circumstances
of its preparation and ministration with the apparel of
his servants that waited, and the decent management of
66 CARLISLE
their attendance nor was she less affected with those
daily sacrifices which were offered to God and the
careful management which the priests and Levites used
about them. When she saw this done every day she
was in the greatest admiration imaginable, insomuch
that she was not able to contain the surprise she was in,
but openly confessed how wonderfully she was affected;
for she proceeded to discourse with the king and thereby
owned that she was overcome with admiration at the
things before related; and said, "all things, indeed O
king, that came to our knowledge by report, came with
uncertainty as to our belief of them; both such as thou,
thyself possessed, I mean wisdom and prudence, and the
happiness thou hast from thy kingdom, certainly the
fame that came to us was no falsity; it was not only a
true report, but it related thy happiness after a much
lower manner, than I now see it before my eyes. For
as for the report it only attempted to persuade our
hearing, but did not so make known the dignity of the
things themselves as does the sight of them, and being
present among them I indeed, who did not believe what
was reported by reason of the multitude and grandeur
of the things I inquired about, do see them to be much
more numerous, than they were reported to be. Ac-
cordingly I esteem the Hebrew people as well as thy
servants and friends to be happy, who enjoy thy pres-
ence, hear thy wisdom every day, continually. One
would therefore bless God who hath so loved this coun-
try and those that inhabit therein as to make thee king
over them."
Now when the queen had thus demonstrated how
deeply the king had affected her, her disposition was
known by certain presents, for she gave him twenty
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 67
talents of gold, and an immense quantity of spices and
precious stones. (They say also that we possess the
root of that balsam which our country still bears by this
woman's gift.) Solomon also repaid her with many
good things and principally by bestowing upon her
what she chose of her own inclination, for there was
nothing she desired which he denied her and as he was
very generous and liberal in his own temper so did he
show the greatness of his soul in bestowing on her what
she herself desired of him.
So when this queen of Ethiopia had obtained what we
have already given an account of and had again com-
municated to the king what she brought with her, she
returned to her own kingdom.
X.
CARTHAGE.
Carthage is said to have been founded nearly 900
years before the Christian Era by Dido, with a colony
of Tyrians. The government, at first monarchical,
became afterwards republican, and it is commended by
Aristotle as one of the most perfect of antiquity. The
two chief magistrates called suffetes or judges were
elected annually from the first families. The religion
was a cruel superstition and human victims were offered
in sacrifice.
In the time of the Punic wars, Carthage was the most
commercial and wealthy city and one of the most splen-
did in the world. It had under its dominion about 300
smaller towns in Africa bordering on the Mediterranean,
a great part of Spain, also of Sicily and other islands.
The Carthaginians worked the gold mines of Spain,
68 CARLISLE
they were devoted to commerce and had the vices and
characteristics of a commercial people. The Romans,
who were their rivals and enemies, represented them as
wanting in integrity and honor, hence the ironical phrase
Punica fides [Punic faith] to denote treachery.
The Periphes, or voyage of Hanuo, an illustrious
Carthaginian who wrote an account of his expedition
affords proof of ardent enterprise. Carthage produced
several celebrated generals, among whom were Hamil-
car, Hasdrubal and Hannibal; the last, the most formid-
able enemy that Rome ever experienced.1
The most distinguished Carthaginian commander in
the first Punic war was Hamilcar who was the father of
Hannibal, and who trained his son to war and made him
swear a perpetual enmity to the Roman name. Hanni-
bal was one of the greatest generals of antiquity and at
the early age of twenty-six was raised to the command
of the Carthaginian army. He commenced the second
Punic war by besieging Saguntum, a city of Spain, in
alliance with the Romans. After a siege of seven months,
the desperate inhabitants set fire to the city and perished
in the flames. Hannibal now formed the bold design of
carrying the war into Italy and by an arduous and toil-
some march he led his army over the Pyrenees and after-
wards over the Alps, without halting, one of the most
wonderful exploits of which there is any record; and
though having lost 30,000 men, rushed into Italy and
gained four great victories. The first over Scipio, near
the Tici-mus; the second over Sempronions near the
Trebia; and the third over Flaminius near the Lake
Thrasmenus; and the fourth over ^Emilius. Among
i Worcester Sec. IV, p. 69.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 69
the slain were 5,000 or 6,000 Roman knights, the greater
part of the whole body. The last was the most memor-
able defeat the Romans ever suffered. According to
Livy 50,000 and according to Polybius no less than
70,000 of their troops were left dead upon the field
together with the consul ^Emilius, and Hannibal is
said to have sent to Carthage three bushels of gold rings
which they wore on their fingers.
HANNIBAL.
Hannibal has been censured for not making the best
of his great victory by immediately attacking Rome,
and instead of doing this for leading his troops into
winter quarters at Capua where they were corrupted
and enervated by dissipation in that luxurious city.
The Romans being now guided by the counsels of the
sagacious and prudent Fabius Maximus concentrated
their strength.
70 CARLISLE
The chief command of their armies was given to
Fabius, styled the shield, and to Marcellus, the sword of
Rome. The good fortune of Hannibal now forsook him
and he remained 13 years in Italy after the battle of
Canne, without gaining any signal advantage. At
the siege of Nola was repulsed by Marcellus with con-
siderable loss, and his army was harassed and weakened
by Fabius.
Syracuse, which had taken part with Carthage, was
besieged by Marcellus and after being defended for three
years, by the inventive genius of the celebrated mathe-
matician, Archimedes, it was at last compelled to
surrender.
This event put an end to the kingdom of Syracuse,
which now became a part of the Roman province of
Sicily. A large army of Carthaginians was sent from
Spain, into Italy under the command of Asdrubal, the
brother of Hannibal, who was defeated with great
slaughter by the Romans under the command of the
consuls, Livy and Nero, near the small river Metaurus,
which empties into the Tyrrhem sea.
Scipio, afterwards surnamed Africanus, having con-
quered Spain, passed over into Africa, with a Roman
army and carried havoc and devastation to the walls of
Carthage.
Alarmed for the fate of their empire the Carthaginians
immediately recalled Hannibal from Italy. These two
great commanders, Hannibal and Scipio at the head of
their respective armies fought in the plains of Zama, a
memorable battle in which the Carthaginians were
totally defeated. A peace soon followed the conditions
of which were that Carthage should abandon Spain,
Sicily and all the other islands in the Mediterranean,
THE ANCIENT NEGRO Jl
surrender all their prisoners, give up their whole fleet
except ten galleys and in future undertake no war with-
out the consent of the Romans. This terminated the
second Punic war, in the humiliation of Carthage after
having continued for 17 years. Hannibal afterwards
fled from his country and passed the last thirteen years
of his life in Syria and Bithynia. During his exile,
Scipio resided a while in the same country and many
friendly conversations passed between them. In one
of which the Roman is said to have asked the Cartha-
ginian whom he thought the greatest general, Hannibal
immediately replied "Alexander, because that with a
small body of men, he had defeated very numerous
armies and had overrun a great part of the world."
"And who do you think deserves the next place?" con-
tinued the Roman . ' ' Pyrrhus ' ' replied the other ; " he first
taught the method of forming a camp to the best ad-
vantage. Nobody knew better how to post guards
more properly." "And whom do you place next to those? "
said Scipio. " Myself," said Hannibal at which Scipio
asked with a smile, "Where then would you have placed
yourself if you had conquered me?" "Above Alex-
ander," replied the Carthaginian, "above Pyrrhus and
above all other generals."1
HANNIBAL'S TREATY.
IV. Treaty concluded between Hannibal, general of the
Carthagenians, and Phillip king of Macedonia, in the
fourth year of the second Punic war, 215 B. C.2
i Worcester, Sec. V. p. 72.
* From Polyb. II, p. 598; Hieren Ap. p. 483.
72 CARLISLE
This is the treaty which Hannibal the general, Mago,
Myrcan, Barmocar and all the senators of Carthage
that were with him, and all the Carthaginians that are
in the army with him have sworn with Xenophams,
the son of Chomachus, the ambassador deputed by king
Phillip, the son of Demetrius, in his own name, and in
the name of the Macedonians and their allies.
In the presence of Jupiter, Juno and Apollo; in the
presence of the deity of the Carthaginians, and of
Hercules and lolaus, in the presence of Mars, Triton,
and Poseidon; in the presence of all the gods who are
with us in the camp and of the sun, the moon, and the
earth; in the presence of the rivers, the lakes, and the
waters; in the presence of all the gods who preside over
the state of Carthage in the presence of all the gods who
preside over the Macedonian empire, and the rest of
Greece; in the presence of all the gods who direct the
affairs of this war, and who are witnesses of the faith;
Hannibal, the general and all the senators of Carthage
that are with him and all the Carthaginians that are
in the army with him, have said, with the consent of
you and of us, this treaty of amity and concord shall
connect us together as friends, as kindred, and as brothers
upon the following conditions:
King Phillip and the Macedonians, together with the
rest of the Greeks that are in alliance with them shall
protect and help the people of Carthage, Hannibal the
general, and those that are with him; the governors in
every place in which the laws of Carthage are observed;
the people of Utica, and all the cities and nations that
are subject to the Carthaginian sway, together with
their armies and their allies; the cities likewise and all
the people with whom we are allied, in Italy, in Gaul
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 73
and in Liguria; and all those that shall hereafter enter
into friendship and alliance with us in those countries.
The Carthaginians, on the other hand, the people of
Utica and all the other cities and states that are subject
to the Carthaginians, with their allies and armies, the
cities also and all the people of Italy, of Gaul and of
Liguria, that are at this time in alliance with us, and
all others likewise that shall hereafter be received into
our alliance in any of those parts of Italy; shall protect
and defend king Phillip and the Macedonians, together
with the rest of the Greeks that are in alliance with
them. We will not engage in any ill designs or employ
any kind of treachery the one against the other. But
with all alacrity and willingness, without any deceit
or fraud, you, the Macedonians shall declare yourselves
the enemies of those that are enemies of the Carthagin-
ians; those kings alone excepted, and those parts and
cities, with which you are connected by any treaty.
And we also on the other hand, will be the enemies of
those that are enemies of King Phillip; those kings and
cities and nations alone excepted, to which we are already
bound by treaty. You shall be partners also with us in
the war, in which we are now engaged against the
Romans; till the gods give to you and to us a happy
peace. You shall supply us with the assistance that is
requisite, and in the manner that shall be stipulated
between us. And if the gods, refusing success to our
endeavors, in the war against the Romans and their
allies should dispose us to enter into treaty with them,
we shall insist, that you also be included in the treaty,
and that the peace be made upon these expressed condi-
tions; that the Romans shall at no time make war
against us; that they shall not remain masters, Corcyra,
74 CARLISLE
Apollonia, Epidanenus, Pharos, Dimalle and Atintania.
And that they shall restore also to Demetrius of Pharos,
all the persons of his kindred, who are now detained in
public custody at Rome. If the Romans shall after-
wards make war either against you or us, we will mu-
tually send such assistance as shall be requisite to either
party. The same thing also will we perform if any other
power shall declare war against us; those cities and
states alone excepted with which we are allied by treaty.
If at any time it should be judged expedient to add to the
present treaty or to detract from it, it shall be done
with mutual consent.
NOTE. Hannibal was at this time in Lower Italy and hoped by
this union with Phillip, who was to invade Italy by crossing the
Adriatic Sea, to annihilate Rome.
About fifty years after the conclusion of the second
Punic war, the Carthaginians attempted to repel the
Numidians who made incursions into a territory claimed
by the former. The Romans, pretending this was a
violation of their treaty laid hold of it as a pretext for
commencing the third Punic war, with a determination
to effect the entire destruction of Carthage. Porcius
Cata, the censor, who now swayed the decisions of the
senate, had long cherished this savage design and had
been in the habit of concluding his speeches with this
expression "Delenda est Carthage," "Carthage must be
destroyed."
The Carthaginians conscious of their inability to
resist the Romans offered every submission and were
ready to acknowledge themselves subjects of Rome.
They yielded up to the Romans, their ships, their arms,
and munitions of war. They were then required to
abandon the city in order that it might be destroyed.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 75
This demand was heard by the inhabitants with a mixed
feeling of indignation and despair; but the spirit of
liberty and independence not being yet extinct they were
roused to make the most strenuous effort, having resolved
to sacrifice their lives rather than to obey the barbarous
mandate.
After the most desperate resistance for three years, the
city was at last taken by Scipio, the second Africanus, and
being set on fire, the flames continued to rage during
1 7 days. Thus was Carthage with its walls and buildings
razed to its foundations. Such of the inhabitants as
disdained to surrender themselves prisoners of war were
either massacred or perished in the flames. The scenes
of horror were such as to force tears even from the
Roman general.
A new Carthage arose from its ruins, with the title of
a colony ; and though Carthage might yield to the royal
perogative of Constantinople and perhaps to the trade
of Alexandria or the splendor of Antioch, she still main-
tained the second rank in the West; as the Rome of the
African world.
That wealthy and opulent metropolis displayed in a
dependent condition the image of a flourishing republic.
Carthage contained the manufactures, the arms and the
treasures of the six provinces. A regular subordination
of civil honors, gradually ascended from the chief pro-
curators of streets and quarters of the city to the tribu-
nal of the supreme magistrate, who with the title of
proconsul, represented the state dignity of a consul of
ancient Rome. Schools and gymnasia were instituted
for the education of the African youth; and the liberal
arts and manners, grammar, rhetoric and philosophy were
publicly taught in the Greek and Latin languages. The
76 CARLISLE
buildings of Carthage were uniform and magnificent.
A shady grove was planted in the midst of the capital,
the new port, a secure and capacious harbor was sub-
servient to the commercial industry of citizens and
strangers; and the splendid games of the circus and
theatre were exhibited almost in the presence of the
barbarians.
The reputation of the Carthaginians was not equal to
that of their country and the reproach of Punic faith
still adhered to their subtle and faithless character. The
habits of trade and the abuse of luxury had corrupted
their manners. In 439 A. D. they were surprised by the
Vandals and reduced to a state of servitude.1
XL
SEPTIMUS SEVERUS. (NEGRO EMPEROR OF
ROME).
From Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
CHAPTER V.
The country of Pannonia and Dalmatia which occu-
pied the space between the Danube and the Hadriatic
was one of the last and most difficult conquests of the
Romans. In the defence of national freedom two hun-
dred thousand of the barbarians had once appeared in
the field, alarmed the declining age of Augustus and
exercised the vigilant prudence of Tiberius at the head
of the collected force of the Empire. The Pannonians
yielded at length to the arms and institutions of Rome.
i Gibbon's Rome, p. 259.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 77
Their recent subjection, however, the neighborhood and
even the mixture of the unconquered tribes and perhaps
the climate adapted as it has been observed, to the pro-
duction of great bodies and slow minds all contributed
to preserve some remains of their original ferocity and
under the tame and uniform countenance of Roman
provincials the hardy features of the natives were still
to be discerned. Their warlike youth afforded an inex-
haustible supply of recruits to the legions stationed on
the banks of the Danube and which from a perpetual
warfare against the Germans and Samartians were
deservedly esteemed the best troops in the service.
The Pannonian army was at this time commanded by
Septimus Severus, a native African, who in the gradual
ascent of private honors had concealed his daring ambi-
tion, which was never diverted from its steady course by
the allurements of pleasure, the apprehension of danger
or the feelings of humanity. On the first news of the
murder of Pertinax he assembled his troops painted in the
most lively colors, the crime, the insolence and the weak-
ness of the Praetorian Guards, and animated the legions
to arms and to revenge. He concluded, and the perora-
tion was thought extremely eloquent, with promising every
soldier about four hundred pounds; an honorable dona-
tive double in value to the infamous bribe with which
Julian had purchased the empire. The acclamations of
the army immediately saluted Severus, with the names of
Augustus Pertinax and Emperor and he (A. D. 193 April
1 3th) thus attained the lofty station to which he was in-
vited by conscious merit, and a long train of dreams
and omens, the fruitful offspring either of his superstition
or policy.
The new candidate for empire saw and improved the
78 CARLISLE
peculiar advantage of his situation. His province
extended to the Julian Alps which gave an easy access
into Italy; and he remembered the saying of Augustus
that a Pannonian army might in ten days appear in
sight of Rome, by a celerity proportioned to the great-
ness of the occasion he might reasonably hope to re-
venge Pertinax, punish Julian and receive the homage
of the senate and people as their lawful emperor, before
his competitors, separated from Italy by a vast tract
of sea and land, were apprised of his success or even of
his election. During the whole expedition he scarcely
allowed himself any moments for food or sleep; march-
ing on foot and in complete armor at the head of his
columns he insinuated himself into the confidence and
affection of his troops pressed their diligence, revived
their spirits, animated their hopes and was well satisfied
to share the hardships of the meanest soldier whilst he
kept in view the infinite superiority of his reward.
The wretched Julian had thought himself prepared
to dispute the empire with the governor of Syria but in
the invincible and rapid approach of the Pannonian
legions he saw his inevitable ruin. The hasty arrival
of every messenger increased his just apprehensions.
He was successively informed that Severus had passed
the Alps; that the Italian cities unwilling or unable to
oppose his progress had received him with the warmest
professions of joy and duty; that the important place
of Ravenna had surrendered without resistance and that
the Hadriatic fleet was in the hands of the conqueror.
The enemy was now within two hundred and fifty miles
of Rome; and every moment diminished the narrow
span, life and empire allotted Julian.
He attempted, however, to prevent or at least to
protract his ruin. He implored the venal faith of the
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 79
Praetorians, filled the city with unavailing preparations
for war; drew lines round the suburbs and even strength-
ened the fortifications of the palace; as if those last in-
trenchments could be defended without hope of relief
against a victorious invader. Fear and shame pre-
vented the guards from deserting his standard; but
they trembled at the name of Pannonian legions, com-
manded by an experienced general and accustomed to
vanquish the barbarians on the frozen Danube. They
quitted with a sigh the pleasures of the baths and theatres
to put on arms whose use they had almost forgotten
and beneath the weight of which they were oppressed.
The unpractised elephants whose uncouth appear-
ance it was hoped would strike terror into the army of
the north threw their unskillful riders; and the awkward
evolutions of the marines, drawn from the fleet of
Misenum were an object of ridicule to the populace;
whilst the Senate enjoyed with secret pleasure the
distress and weakness of the usurper.
Every motion of Julian betrayed his trembling per-
plexity. He insisted that Severus should be declared
a public enemy by the senate. He intreated that the
Pannonian general might be associated to the empire.
He sent public ambassadors to negotiate with his rival;
he dispatched private assassins to take away his life.
He designed that the Vestal Virgins and all the colleges
of priests in the sacerdotal habits and bearing before
them the sacred pledges of the Roman religion, should
advance in solemn procession to meet the Pannonian
legions and at the same time he vainly tried to interro-
gate, or to appease the fates, by magic ceremonies and
unlawful sacrifices.1
Hist. August p. 62-63.
80 CARLISLE
Severus who dreaded neither his arms nor his enchant-
ments guarded himself from the only danger of secret
conspiracy, by the faithful attendance of six hundred
chosen men, who never quitted his person or their
cuirrasses either by night or by day during the whole
march. Advancing with a steady and rapid course he
passed without difficulty the denies of the Apennine,
received into his party the troops and ambassadors
sent to retard his progress and made a short halt at Inter-
amia about seventy miles from Rome. His victory was
already secure ; but the despair of the Praetorians might
have rendered it bloody; and Severus had the laudable
ambition of ascending the throne without drawing the
sword. His emissaries dispersed in the capital, assured
the guards, that provided they would abandon their
worthless prince and the perpetrators of the murder of
Pertinax, to the justice of the conqueror, he would
no longer consider that melancholy event as the act
of the whole body. The faithless Praetorians whose
resistance was supported only by sullen obstinacy,
gladly complied with the easy conditions, seized the
greatest part of the assassins and signified to the senate
that they no longer defended the cause of Julian. That
assembly convoked by the consul unanimously acknowl-
edged Severus as lawful emperor, decreed divine honors
to Pertinax and pronounced a sentence of deposition
and death against his unfortunate successor. Julian
was conducted into a private apartment of the baths of
the palace (A. D. 193, June 2) beheaded as a common
criminal after having purchased with an immense
treasure an anxious and precarious reign of only sixty-
six days.1
i Dion. LXXIII, p. 1240. Herodian III, p. 83. Hist. August, p. 63.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 8l
Severus covered a distance of eight hundred miles in
forty days or twenty miles a day without halt or inter-
mission. The almost incredible expedition of Severus,
who in so short a space of time, conducted a numerous
army from the banks of the Danube to those of the Tyber,
proves at once the plenty of provisions produced by ag-
riculture and commerce, the goodness of roads, the
discipline of the legions and the indolent, subdued temper
of the provinces.
The first cares of Severus were bestowed on two meas-
ures, the one dictated by policy, the other by decency;
the revenge and the honors due to the memory of
Pertinax. Before the new emperor entered Rome he
issued his commands to the Praetorian Guards directing
them to wait his arrival on a large plain near the city,
without arms but in the habits of ceremony in which
they were accustomed to attend their sovereign. He
was obeyed by those haughty troops, whose contrition
was the effect of their just terrors. A chosen part of the
Illyrian army encompassed them with levelled spears.
Incapable of flight or resistance they expected their
fate in silent consternation. Severus mounted the
tribunal, sternly reproached them with perfidy and
cowardice, dismissed them with ignominy from the
trust which they had betrayed, despoiled of their splen-
did ornaments, and banished them upon pain of death,
to the distance of a hundred miles from the capital.
During the transaction another detachment had been
sent to seize their arms, occupy their camp and prevent
the hasty consequences of their despair.1
The funeral and consecration of Pertinax was next
solemnized with every circumstance of sad magnificence.
1 Dion i. LXXIV, p. 1241. Herodian I. II, p. 84.
82 CARLISLE
The senate with a melancholy pleasure, performed the
last rites to excellent prince, whom they had loved and
still regretted. The concern of his successor was proba-
bly less sincere. He esteemed the virtues of Pertinax
but those virtues would forever have confined his ambi-
tion to a private station. Severus pronounced his
funeral oration, with studied eloquence, inward satis-
faction and well acted sorrow; and by this pious regard
to his memory convinced the credulous multitude that
he alone was worthy to supply his place. Sensible,
however, that arms, not ceremony must assert his claim
to the empire, he left Rome at the end of thirty days,
and without suffering himself to be elated by this easy
victory prepared to encounter his more formidable rivals.
The uncommon abilities and fortune of Severus have
induced an elegant historian to compare him with the
first and greatest of the Caesars.1
In less than four years (A. D. 193-197) Severus sub-
dued the riches of the east and the valor of the west.
He vanquished two competitors of reputation and ability
and defeated numerous armies, provided with weapons
and discipline equal to his own. In that age the art of
fortification and the principles of tactics were well under-
stood by all the Roman generals ; and the constant supe-
riority of Severus was that of an artist who uses the
same instruments with more skill and industry than his
rivals. I shall not, however, enter into a minute narra-
tive of these operations ; but as the two civil wars against
Niger and against Albiuns were almost the same in
their conduct, event and consequences, I shall collect
into one point of view the most striking circumstances,
i Herodias, i. Ill, p. 112.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 83
tending to develop the character of the conqueror and
the state of the empire.
Falsehood and insincerity, unsuitable as they seem
to the dignity of public transactions offend us with a less
degrading idea of meanness, than when they are found
in the intercourse of private life. In the latter they dis-
cover a want of courage; in the other only a defect of
power; and as it is impossible for the most able states-
man to subdue millions of followers and enemies by their
own personal strength, the world, under the name, policy,
seems to have granted them a very liberal indulgence of
craft and dissimulation. Yet the arts of Severus
cannot be justified by the most ample privileges of state
reason. He promised only to betray, he nattered only
to ruin and however he might occasionally bind himself
by oaths and treaties, his conscience, obsequious to his
interest, always released him from the inconvenient
obligation.1
If his two competitors reconciled by their common
danger had advanced upon him without delay, perhaps
Severus would have sunk under their united effort.
Had they even attacked him at the same time with
separate views and separate armies the contest might
have been long and doubtful. But they fell singly and
successively an easy prey to the arts as well as arms of
Severus, of the subtle enemy lulled into security by the
moderation of his professions and overwhelmed by the
rapidity of his action. He first marched against Niger
whose reputation and power he most dreaded but he
declined any hostile declaration, suppressed the name
of his antagonist and only signified to the senate and the
1 Herodian i. p. 85.
84 CARLISLE
people his intention of regulating the eastern provinces.
In private, he spoke of Niger, his old friend, an intended
successor with the most affectionate regard and highly
applauded his generous design of revenging the murder
of Pertinax. To punish the vile usurper of the throne
was the duty of every Roman general. To persevere in
arms and to resist a lawful emperor acknowledged by
the senate would alone render him criminal.1
The sons of Niger had fallen into his hands among the
children of the provincial governors, detained at Rome
as pledges for the loyalty of their parents. As long as
the power of Niger inspired terror or even respect they
were educated with the most tender care with the chil-
dren of Severus himself, even in the letter, in which he
announced his victory over Niger, he styles Albinus, the
brother of his soul and empire, sends him the affection-
ate salutations of his wife Julia, and his young family
and intreats him to preserve the armies and the republic
faithful to their common interest. The messengers
charged with this letter were instructed to accost the
Caesar with respect to desire a private audience and to
plunge their daggers into his heart. The conspiracy was
discovered and the too credulous Albinus at length
passed over to the continent and prepared for an unequal
contest with his rival who rushed upon him at the head
of a veteran and victorious army.
The military labors of Severus seem inadequate to
the importance of his conquests. Two engagements,
the one near the Hellespont, the other in the narrow
defiles of Cilicia decided the fate of his Syrian competi-
tor; and the troops of Europe asserted their usual
i Hist. August, p. 65.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 85
ascendant over the effeminate natives of Asia. The
battle of Lyons where one hundred and fifty thousand
(Dion i. LXXV, p. 1260) Romans were engaged was
equally fatal to Albinus. The valor of the British army
maintained a sharp and doubtful contest with the hardy
discipline of the Illyrian legions. The fame and person
of Severus appeared during a few moments irrecoverably
lost till that war-like prince rallied his fainting troops
and led them on to a decisive victory. The war was
finished by that memorable day.
Both Niger and Albinus were discovered and put to
death in their flight from the field of battle. Their
fate excited neither surprise nor compassion. They
had staked their lives against the chance of empire and
suffered what they would have inflicted; nor did Severus
claim the arrogant superiority of suffering his rivals to
live in a private station. But his unforgiving temper
stimulated by avarice indulged a spirit of revenge
where there was no room for apprehension. The most
considerable of the provincials, who without any dis-
like to the fortunate candidate, had obeyed the governor
under whose authority they were accidentally placed,
were punished by death, exile and especially by the
confiscation of their estates. Many cities of the east
were stript of their ancient honors and obliged to pay
into the treasury of Severus, four times the amount of
the sums contributed by them for the service of Niger.1
Till the final decision of the war the cruelty of Severus
was in some measure restrained by the uncertainty of
the event, and his pretended reverence for the senate.
The head of Albinus accompanied with a menacing
» Dion. i. XXTV. p. 1250.
86 CARLISLE
letter, announced to the Romans, that he was resolved
to spare none of the adherents of his unfortunate com-
petitors. He was irritated by the just suspicion that
he had never possessed the affection of the senate and he
concealed his old malevolence under the discovery of
some treasonable correspondences. Thirty-five senators,
however, accused of having favored the party of Albinus,
he freely pardoned; and, by his subsequent behavior
endeavored to convince them, that he had forgotten as
well as forgiven their supposed offences. But at the
same time he condemned forty-one other senators whose
names history has recorded; their wives, children and
clients attended them in death and the noblest pro-
vincials of Spain and Gaul were involved in the same
ruin.
Such rigid justice, for so he termed it, was in the
opinion of Severus, the only conduct capable of insuring
peace to the people or stability to the prince; and he
condescended slightly to lament that to be mild, it was
necessary that he should first be cruel (Aurelins Victor).
The true interest of an absolute monarch generally
coincides with that of his people. Their numbers, their
wealth, their order and their security, are the best and
only foundations of his royal greatness; and were he
totally devoid of virtue, prudence might supply its place
and would dictate the same rule of conduct. Severus
considered the Roman empire as his property and had
no sooner secured possession of it, than he bestowed his
care, on the cultivation and improvement of so valuable
an acquisition. Salutary laws, executed with inflexible
firmness soon corrected most of the abuses with which
since the death of Marcus, every part of the govern-
ment had been infected. In the administration of
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 87
justice, the judgments of the emperor were characterized
by attention, discernment, and impartiality; and when-
ever he deviated from the strict line of equity it was
generally in favor of the poor and oppressed; not so
much indeed from a sense of humanity as from the
natural propensity of a despot to humble the pride of the
rich and to sink all his subjects to the same common
level of absolute dependence. His expensive taste for
building and magnificent shows, and above all a constant
and liberal distribution of corn and provisions, were
the surest means of captivating the affection of the
Roman people. The misfortunes of civil discord were
obliterated. The calm of peace and prosperity was once
more experienced in the provinces, and many cities
restored by the munificence of Severus assumed the
title of his colonies, and attested by public monuments
their gratitude and felicity.
The fame of the Roman arms was revived by that
warlike emperor and he boasted with a just pride that
having received the empire oppressed with foreign and
domestic wars, he left it established in profound universal
and honorable peace.
Although the wounds of civil war appeared completely
healed, its mortal poison still lurked in the vitals of the
constitution. Severus possessed a considerable share of
vigor and ability; but the daring soul of the first Caesar,
or the deep policy of Augustus, were scarcely equal to
the task of curbing the insolence of the victorious legions.
By gratitude, by misguided policy, by seeming necessity,
Severus was induced to relax the nerves of discipline.1
The vanity of his soldiers was flattered with honor of wear-
ing gold rings; their ease was indulged in the permission
1 Herodian i. Ill, p. 115. Hist. August, p. 68.
88 CARLISLE
of living with their wives in the idleness of quarters.
He increased their pay beyond the example of former
times and taught to expect and soon to claim extraordi-
nary donations on every public occasion of danger or
festivity. Elated by success, enervated by luxury, and
raised above the level of subjects by their dangerous priv-
ileges they soon became incapable of military fatigue,
oppressive to the country, and impatient of a just sub-
ordination. Their officers asserted the superiority of
rank by a more profuse and elegant luxury.
There is still extant a letter of Severus lamenting the
licentious state of the army and exhorting one of his
generals to begin the necessary reformation, from the
tribunes themselves; since he justly observes the officer
who has forfeited the esteem, will never command the
obedience of his soldiers.1
Had the emperor pursued the train of reflection he
would have discovered that the primary cause of this
general corruption might be ascribed not indeed to the
example but to the pernicious indulgence, however, of
the commander-in-chief.
The Praetorians who murdered their emperor and sold
the empire had received the just punishment of their
treason; but the necessary though dangerous institu-
tion of guards was soon restored on a new model by
Severus and increased to four times the ancient numbers.2
Formerly these troops had recruited in Italy; and as
the adjacent provinces gradually imbibed the softer
manners of Rome, the levies were extended to Macedonia,
i Hist. August, p. 73.
s Herodian i. Ill, p.
131.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 89
Noricum, and Spain. In the room of these elegant
troops, better adapted to the pomp of courts than to the
uses of war, it was established by Severus that from all
the legions of the frontiers, the soldiers most distinguished
for strength, valor, and fidelity should be occasionally
draughted and promoted, as an honor and reward, into
the more eligible service of the guards. Dion. i. XXV,
p. 1243. By this new institution, the Italian youths
were diverted from the exercise of arms and the capital
was terrified by the strange aspect and manners of a
multitude of barbarians. But Severus flattered him-
self that the legions would consider these chosen Prae-
torians as the representatives of the whole military
order; and that the present aid of fifty thousand men,
superior in arms and appointments to any force that
could be brought into the field against them would for-
ever crush the hopes of rebellion, and secure the empire
to himself and his posterity.
The command of these favored and formidable troops
became the first office of the empire. As the govern-
ment degenerated into military despotism, the Praetor-
ian Praefect, who in his origin had been a simple captain
of the guards, was placed not only at the head of the
army, but of the finances and even of the law. In every
department of administration he represented the person
and exercised the authority of the emperor. The first
Praefect who enjoyed and abused this immense power
was Plantianus, the favorite minister of Severus. His
reign lasted about ten years, till the marriage of his
daughter with the eldest son of the emperor, which
seemed to assure his fortune, proved the occasion of his
ruin. The animosities of the palace by irritating the
ambition and alarming the fears of Plantianus threat-
90 CARLISLE
ened to produce a revolution and obliged the emperor
who still loved him to consent with reluctance to his
death. After the fall of Plantianusan, eminent lawyer,
Paupinian was appointed to execute the motley office
of Praetorian Praefect.
Till the reign of Severus the virtue and even the good
sense of the emperors had been distinguished by their
zeal or affected reverence for the senate and by a tender
regard to the nice frame of civil policy instituted by
Augustus. But the youth of Severus had been trained
in the implicit obedience of camps and his riper years,
spent in the despotism of military commands.
His haughty and inflexible spirit could not discover
or would not acknowledge, the advantage of preserving
an immediate power, however imaginary between the
emperor and the army. He disdained to profess himself
the servant of an assembly that detested his person and
trembled at his frown. He issued his commands, where
his request would have proved as effectual, assumed the
conduct and style of a sovereign and conqueror and
exercised without disguise the whole legislative, as well
as executive power. The victory over the senate was
easy and inglorious. Every eye and every passion were
directed to the supreme magistrate, who possessed the
arms and treasure of the state; whilst the senate neither
elected by the people nor guarded by military force,
nor animated by public spirit rested its declining author-
ity on the frail and crumbling basis of ancient opinion.
The fine theory of a republic insensibly vanished and
made way for the more natural and substantial feelings
of monarchy. As the freedom and honors of Rome were
successively communicated to the provinces in which
the old government had been either unknown or remem-
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 91
bered with abhorrence, the tradition of republican max-
ims was gradually obliterated.
The Greek historians of the age of the Automines
observe with a malicious pleasure, that although the
sovereign of Rome in compliance with an obsolete preju-
dice abstained from the name of king, he possessed the
full measure of regal power.
In the reign of Severus the senate was filled with
polished and eloquent slaves from the Eastern provinces
who justified personal flattery by speculative principles
of servitude. These new advocates of prerogative were
heard with pleasure by the court and with patience by
the people, when they inculcated passive obedience and
descanted on the inevitable mischiefs of freedom.
The lawyers and historians concurred in teaching
that the imperial authority was held not by the delegated
commission but by the irrevocable resignation of the
senate; that the emperor was freed from the restraint
of civil laws, could command by his arbitrary will the
lives and fortunes of his subjects and might dispose of
the empire as of his private patrimony. The most
eminent of the civil lawyers, and particularly Paupinian,
Paulus, and Illpian flourished under the house of Severus;
and the Roman jurisprudence having closely united
itself with the system of monarchy was supposed to
have attained its full maturity and prerogative. The
contemporaries of Severus in the enjoyment of peace
and glory of his reign, forgave the cruelties by which it
had been introduced. Posterity who experienced the
fatal effects of the maxims and example justly considered
him as the principal author of the decline of the Roman
empire.
The ascent to greatness, however steep and dangerous,
Q2 CARLISLE
may entertain an active spirit with the consciousness
and exercise of its own powers; but the possession of a
throne could never yet afford a lasting satisfaction to
an ambitious mind. This melancholy truth was felt
and acknowledged by Severus. Fortune and merit had
from a humble station elevated him to the first of mankind.
" He had been all things as he said himself and all was
of little value."1
" Omnia fin et nihil expedit. " Oppressed with age and
infirmities, careless of fame distracted with the care,
not of acquiring but preserving an empire (Dion. Cas-
sins i. LXXVI, p. 1284), and satiated with power, all
his prospects of life were closed. The desire of per-
petuating the greatness of his family was the only re-
maining wish of his ambition and paternal tenderness.
Like most of the Africans Severus was passionately
addicted to the vain studies of magic and devination,
deeply versed in the interpretation of dreams and
omens, and perfectly acquainted with the science of
judicial astrology; which in almost every age except
the present has maintained its dominion over the mind
of man.
He had lost his first wife, whilst he was governor
of Lionnese Gaul. In the choice of a second, he sought
only to connect himself with some favorite of fortune;
and as soon as he discovered that a young lady of
Enusa in Syria had a royal nativity he solicited and
obtained her hand (Hist. August, p. 65). Julia Domna,
for that was her name, deserved all that the stars could
promise her/ She possessed even in advanced age
the attractions of beauty (Hist. August, p. 85) and
i Hist. August, p. 71.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 93
united to a lively imagination, a firmness of mind and
strength of judgment seldom bestowed on her sex.
Her amiable qualities never made any deep impression
on the dark and jealous temper of her husband; but
in her son's reign, she administered the principal affairs
of the empire with a prudence that supported his author-
ity; and with a moderation that sometimes corrected
his wild extravagances. (Dion. Cassins i. LXXVIL
p. 13, 14.) Julia applied herself to letters and philos-
ophy with some success and with the most splendid
reputation. She was the patroness of every art and the
friend of every man of genius. The grateful flattery of
the learned has celebrated her virtue; but, if we may
credit the scandal of ancient history, chastity was very
far from being her most conspicuous virtue.1
Two sons Caracalla and Geta were the fruit of this
marriage and the destined heirs of the empire. The
fond hopes of the father and the Roman world, were
soon disappointed by these vain youths, who displayed
the indolent security of hereditary princes; and a
presumption that fortune would supply the place of
merit and application. Without any emulation or
virtue or talents, they discovered almost from their
infancy a fixed and implacable antipathy for each other.
Their aversion confirmed by years and fomented by the
arts of their interested favorites broke out in childish
and gradually in more serious competition; and at
length divided the theatre, the circus and the court into
two factions actuated by the hopes and fears of their
respective leaders. The prudent emperor endeavored
by every expedient of advice and authority to allay
» Dion. i. LXXVI. p. 1283 Aurelius Victor.
04 CARLISLE
this growing animosity. The unhappy discord of his
sons clouded all his prospects and threatened to over-
turn a throne raised with so much labor and cemented
with so much blood and guarded with every defence of
of arms and treasure. With an impartial hand he
maintained between them the exact balance of favor
conferred on both the rank of Augustus with the revered
name of Antonius; and for the first time the Roman
world beheld three emperors. Yet even this equal
conduct served only to inflame the contest. Whilst
the fierce Caracalla asserted the right of primogeniture,
the milder Geta courted the affections of the people
and the soldiers. In the anguish of a disappointed
father Serverus foretold that the weaker of his sons would
fall a sacrifice to the stronger; who in his turn would
be ruined by his own vices.
In these circumstances the intelligence of a war in
Britain and of an invasion (A. D. 208) of the province
by the barbarians of the North was received with pleas-
ure by Severus. Though the vigilance of his lieutenants
might have been sufficient to repel the distant enemy,
he resolved to embrace the honorable pretext of with-
drawing his sons from the luxury of Rome which ener-
vated their minds and irritated their passions and of
inuring their youth to the toils of war and government.
Notwithstanding his advanced age, for he was above
three score, and his gout which obliged him to be carried
in a litter, he transported himself in person into that
remote island attended by his two sons, his whole court
and a formidable army. He immediately passed the
walls of Hadrian and Antonius and entered the enemy's
country with a design of completing the long attempted
conquest of Britain. He penetrated to the northern
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 95
extremity of the island without meeting an enemy.
But the concealed ambuscades of the Caledonians who
hung unseen on the rear and flanks of his army, the
coldness of the climate and the severity of a winter
march across the hills and morasses of Scotland are
reported to have cost the Romans above fifty thousand
men. The Caledonians at length yielded to the powerful
and obstinate attack, sued for peace, and surrendered a
part of their arms and a large tract of territory.
But their apparent submission lasted no longer than
their present terror. As soon as the Roman legions had
retired they resumed their hostile independence. Their
restless spirit provoked Severus to send a new army into
Caledonia with the most bloody orders, not to subdue
but to extirpate the natives. They were saved by the
death of their haughty enemy.1
The Caledonian war, neither marked by decisive
events nor attended with any important consequences,
would ill deserve our attention; but it is supposed not
without a considerable degree of probability that the
invasion of Severus is connected with the most shining
period of the British history of fable.
The declining health and last illness of Severus
inflamed the wild amibtion and black passions of Cara-
callas's soul. Impatient of any delay or division of
empire he attempted more than once to shorten the
small remainder of his father's days, and endeavored
but without success to excite a mutiny among the
troops.2
The old emperor had often censured the misguided
leniency of Marcus, who by a single act of justice might
> Dion. i. XXVI, p. 1280 Herodian, i. Ill, p. 132 etc.
» Dion. i. XXVI, p. 1282, Hist. August, p. 71, Aurelius Victor.
g 6 CARLISLE
have saved the Romans from the tyranny of his worthless
sons. Placed in the same situation, he experienced how
easily the rigour of a judge dissolves away in the tender-
ness of a father. He deliberated, he threatened, but he
could not punish; and this last and only instance of
mercy was more fatal to the empire than a long series of
cruelty.1
The disorder of his mind irritated the pains of his body;
he wished impatiently for death and hastened the
instant of it by his impatience. He expired A. D. 211,
Feb. 4 at York in the sixty-fifth year of his life and the
eighteenth of a glorious and successful reign.
CARACALLA, ROMAN EMPEROR 211-17 A. D.
Caracalla, eldest son of Septimus Severus, was born
at Lyons 188 A. D. He was originally named Bassianus
from his maternal grandfather, but his legal name as it
appears on medals and inscriptions was M. Aurelius
Antonius. He was nicknamed Caracalla from the long
hooded tunic which he wore after the fashion and in the
language of the Gauls. He ascended the throne as
co-regent with his brother Publius Septimus Antonius
Geta whom he afterwards murdered in his mother's
arms. His reign was a long train of cruelties. He put
to death all the friends and adherents of Geta among
them the eminent jurist, Papinianus. He resorted to
every possible means to maintain his extravagances
and to pay his soldiers. In his famous constitution he
bestowed Roman citizenship on all his free subjects not
citizens who formed the majority, especially in the
i Dion i. XXVI, p. 1283. Hist. August, p. 89.
THE ANCIENT NEGRO 97
provinces but simply in order to levy a greater amount
of taxes on releases and heritages, which were paid
only by citizens. After almost exhausting Italy by his
extortions his arts of oppression were directed against
the provinces which had been in a great measure spared
by former emperors. In 214 he visited Gaul, Germany,
Dacia and Thrace, and after a campaign against the
Alemanui assumed the surname of Alemanuicus. He was
assassinated at the instigation of Macrinus, prefect of the
Praetorians, by one of his veterans named Martialis on the
8th of April, 2 17, on the way from Edessa to Carrhae.
A people without history, a country, or a flag would
be a most extraordinary circumstance yet owing to
misplaced facts it is in this light the Negro is regarded.
The day has come, however, for a fixed Negro status and
this must necessarily be based upon ancestry.
Ambitions and aspirations are inspired largely by pride
in our ancestors. Owing to a lack of knowledge or
source of information easily accessible we have remained
in ignorance to a great extent of the history of Negro peo-
ples. The average school history contains little or noth-
ing, leaving the Negro youth in the darkness of despair
To-day things are assuming a new aspect and in order
to meet the new issues we must needs have an enlarged
vision. The narrow confines which have so long held
us have been outgrown.
Descendants of kings and princes and illustrious
personages we have been denied the smallest item of
of their achievements, reciting ever and anon the glories
of other races, yet always craving tangible assurance of
our own origin. If this little volume of sketches tends
in any way to allay this longing we shall feel well paid
for our effort.
FINIS
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